Spider's Heir
by Let-There-Be-Rain
Summary: The story of a girl, born a noble, escaped from her homeland, and living as an apprentice alchematorian and assassin in a dark port at the edge of an island. Loads of fighting, arguments and secrets to be revealed may be found in this story.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Annoying Note: Hello there, wenches and gentlemen, even though I don't think many gentlemen will read this story, and, um, welcome (if I can use this word for something to read (!)) to the first chapter of this story. I have already put it on this web site, but I put it again, with some mistakes rubbed of, literally of course, but nevertheless rubbed off. Please, read, then think, drink a little bit of tea/coffee/fish-tank water to calm yourself down, and REVIEW. And please give me some advices and tell me what you don't like as well as what you like about this story.**

**Well, um, enjoy. (And don't forget to review, or ELSE :_evil way of talking, like all the evil characters of the movie and cartoons—you know, the slow, drawling o-r—e-l-s-s-s-s-_:) **

**Chapter One**

**Room 333**

The sun was slowly falling behind the neat line of the shining grey sea, and the thick silvery mist was starting to come down from the Light-Less Woods, its long, pale ribbons coiling around the tall grey trees, the narrow, unsymmetrical houses, the half-rotten dark wooden pills of the many, labyrinthine docks, sliding on the smooth, dangerously still, deep-dark water. Everything seemed sad and soulless in the grim falling dusk, and even the sun was just a dim light behind the veil of thick, faded, grey-white clouds that were serving as only sky above the big, dark-grey, narrow village that was sticking tightly against the sad savage Wreck Sea. Here and there, through the deepening, thickening mist, the pale yellow and green lights of the torches were starting to glow, like dots of eerie light in a city were night meant a whole other universe, and the peoples started to go back to their houses, hurrying and hunched after their hard day of labor, knowing perfectly that when it would be dark, the city would put on its second mask, the terrible, hard, cruel, twisted one, and become dangerous.

Nevertheless, it was already deep dark in the night when Arach stumbled out of the Alchematoria, where she had spent the whole day helping tiny, distracted Master Alchematorian Morphine to prepare his well-known potions of Death With A Lot of Pain. Too young to be a Master herself, yet too talented not to be allowed in the Alchematoria, at eighteen Arach had already the experience and the talent of any Master Alchematorian, even if she didn't look like one. Not tall enough, too thin, not even with the advantage to be muscled, and even less graceful, she had a small pale face, with narrow black eyes like slits of jet incrusted in her marmoreal visage, a tiny nose that crooked in a very slight arch over a mouth that was bloody red with all her sins and disturbingly twisted with a coil of mingled mean irony, harsh exasperation and invincible wit. She had long, raven hair, cut unequally, falling over her eyes, cheeks, shoulders and back, uncombed, untidy, abandoned, in a long veil of ragged tenebrous and savage silk. Dressed with a black corset of faded silk that she had been using for at least four years, a simple black tunic of cotton tied with leather straps and black leather trousers and boots that she had also been using for quite a time, a large, old, baggy and extravagantly elegance-lacking long brown coat with the hood pulled on her face and sleeve-less gloves of faded, cracked leather at her hands, she seemed more massive in the dark, her spidery, nimble white hands pulled deeply in her big pockets, her back hunched under the crushing weariness of the harsh routine. Like so many miserable peoples of StonePort, her work of the day was immediately followed by her work of the Night, which, of course, was much more different.

She briskly walked down the great Main Path, which slithered importantly between two lines of narrow and brightly lit inns and hostels, kicking down the dark stealthy shapes that were stretching their hands for the thin brown purse that hung from her old silver-buckled belt, escaping with hisses of fury from the arms of longing and bold sailors from the ships that never ceased to come and go from the crowded port, throwing square, hard cuffs in the wan faces of the sneaky beggars that annoyed her so much, and finally arrived at the Dancing Tree, a great, warm, beautiful, bad frequented inn, held by an opulent, gorgeous, forty year old tall blond woman named Roseeh.

'Arach!' cried the latter in her languishing, friendly and booming voice, 'How is the personal life?'

'As ever,' replied Arach under her breath, answering in a way so that nobody, not even Roseeh herself, could hear her, and ducking away behind a man.

It didn't matter anyway. Arach's life was always as ever. Her life was as monotonous as the Cathedral's huge solemn, cruel-sounding clock, with its hard work, dangerous night business, cold, lonely nights and harsh mornings. It was well known in StonePort that Arach, the Alchematorian Apprentice, the Assassin, the mysterious girl from somewhere else, the hard worker, was without any lover, which was a great surprised, as she frequented very handsome men, and as she was not rich. Debauch, was the word employed by Arach. Debauch. Who would possibly be enough honour-less to sell her body to a man, even if she is dying of hunger and cold? Honor was her bad point, one of her many bad points, people said. If she would have been homeless, foodless in the road and that someone had given her a gold coin, she would have rather had spit at his face and die, than to accept it and own a dept of pity and mercy. Honor, in her heart, was the only thing that allowed her to live, the only thing that pushed her away from her black misery, from the long, unbearable calamity of life at StonePort. So her honor, deep in her heart, had raised such hopes, such expectations she sometimes lost confidence even in honor. These times, however, life was rather better, even if she knew that she would have to sleep in a cold bed, in a humid bedroom at the back of a cheap, miserable inn.

'There's someone for you in the Room333,' said Roseeh, leaning over the massif wooden counter, beaming down at the girl's pale, hostile young face as she burst up from the crowd in which she had just duck like someone gasping out of heart-frosting water.

'Room333? Oh hell…'she said in under-tones, throwing an angry look to a man that was looking at her with a look of sympathetic anticipation and friendship. The man seemed thunderstruck against her aggressive glare, and quickly looked away at his perfect, beautiful nails.

Arach, hands in pocket, her head between her shoulders, went at the far end of the tavern, slipping between the tables and the peoples, in a dimly fire-lit room where three peoples were talking quietly. One was a woman with blond hair and a huge diamond-incrusted golden sword hanging at her hip, the other a man drinking some ale, and talking to her, holding a heavy-looking bag of gold in a hand, looking extremely suspicious; the last one was another woman, dressed in a dark dress of rich materials that fell in a sea of precious velvet all around her slender frame, her pale blond hair tightly pulled behind her head, which was covered with a white fur-trimmed hood. When she saw Arach come, she sat straighter, sweeping up the crystalline blue eyes in a fair, piercing gaze, and gestured her to come to seat next to her in the opposite leather armchair. Arach went to seat at the very edge, and said unceremoniously:

'I want heavy gold.'

'You shall have. Here…is the reward,' said the woman, discreetly taking a little bag away from a fold in her skirts.

Arach, manner-less, grabbed the bag, and opened it abruptly; it was full of gold coins, Empire Gold, gleaming tenderly in the firelight and lighting up her own eyes. She raised her head toward the blond stranger, her eyes glittering as much as the gold between the untidy, dirty strands of her lusterless black hair, and said in a pleased tone:

'Very well. What's the job?'

'I want you to find and kill—the hunter named—Hawkke.'

'A hunter?' said Arach, leaning back in the chair, smiling smugly 'shall be easy. I take the job.'

'You have two nights. If in the third you're not here at this same hour, then the gold will never be yours.' The stranger stood up, raised her head majestically, and went away from the room with a discreet murmur of her elegant skirts.

**Author's Irritating After-note: Hope you are already addicted to those writings. Now, _do not_ forget to review (you'd better not, anyway, because I cast a spell over this story, so that if you don't review it immediately, your hair will rot off your head, your eyes will pop out of your sockets, all shriveled, like raisins, which, by the way, are totally delicious, especially the golden ones, but this is not the point, and your fingers will freeze until they just cut off from your knuckles and the blood spurs away and boils down to the floor and in fact is alien acid and ruins your best shoes/socks/carpet. So—I warned you, and my magic cannot be defeated by any reasonable and totally horrid means, like onions, garlic, little brothers, and Unsharpened Pens, uurgh :_shivers_: Anyway, you get the thing: REVIEW!) **


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Nauseatingly Stupid Note: hi there, ladies and oh-so-few gentlemen, and welcome to this second chapter! Take a sit, and enjoy as the words roll down your eyes to form tasty sentences and then the snake rose and struck the little girl—um, it seems something's gone wrong…um…yeah, definitely. Just pretend you never read that. **

**You probably never did, anyway, so just read on the reasonable bit coming, and REVIEW or else! Get that! Review, review, review…(are you hypnotized yet?)**

**Chapter Two**

**Swapping Roles**

Arach sighed self-satisfiedly, stretched luxuriously and finally stood up. She knew were to find the hunters, and had only to look for the Hawkke in person, then she would have to kill. Poison being too dangerous in the kind of crowded inns hunters frequented, her weapon would be a dagger; she would hide in the mist, and strike. The hall of Hunters was not far from the _Dancing Tree_, and when she arrived after a few minutes violent walk, she was in the middle of a full crowd of men, walking, talking, laughing, fighting, working, drinking, searching…As she passed next to him, a young man with pale blue eyes like clear topazes slipped a hand around her slender, impossibly slim waist, but she threw him such a kick of her solidly booted foot that he found himself sitting on his back on the hard burnished wooden floor, with a laughing crowd of peoples surrounding him, and she gone. Arach finally arrived at a dark room like the _Dancing Tree_'s one, and she walked straight to a tall, big muscled man, dressed in grim grey from head to foot, and copiously drinking, who was a friend of hers: 'Elly, got a thing to tell you,' she said, sitting next to him at the thick table on which he was slumbered limply and wearily.

'Araaaaach, what a deliciouuuus surpriiiiise,' simpered Elly, taking a sip from his glass mug.

'You're drunk?' asked Arach sternly, glancing disgustedly at the three empty mugs in front of him on the dirty table.

'Nope,' replied Elly, and pushing his half full glass away from him with a calm, sweeping gesture, then he linked his hands together and said. 'See?'

'Do you know a guy named Hawkke?'

'Hawkke? Oh man, you chose them well, Arach if you've got him,' he said, giggling like a kid.

'Shut your ugly mug,' she snapped, and continued, 'Where can I find him?'

'He goes to the Bird's Tavern to sleep there every night, at about…midnight, one hour of the morning.'

'Right 'en, bye,' she said, standing up briskly, but he grabbed her arm and said sympathetically:

'You'll certainly take a glass with me, na?'

'Got some work to do,' she answered without even stopping, and went out of the Hall.

She looked at the huge clock of the Cathedral, which was mournfully and dismally ticking its long, sharp needles of time towards death. It was just quarter past eleven. She pulled the old brown coat tighter around her frail body and, a slender dagger of sterling silver pressed in her hand, walking quickly, like a shadow, in the mist, she went to lean against the wall next to the Bird tavern's door, from which peoples never ceased coming out and in. Studying the scene with her sharp eyes of jet nuggets, she decided it was probably too dangerous to kill him outside, as hunters had always many friends around them; it was probable he would have someone to help him in no time, and she wanted a quick, discreet assassin, even if she would not be able to poison him with one the powerful, silent drug she had in one of her numerous pockets, stolen in the eternal, extraordinary cupboards of the Alchematoria of Nariee.

Arach had always been very proud of the fact that she worked in a place that gave her everything she needed to do her nocturnal work. Not that she really needed to do this work, the night, but she was using every second of her life to gather money, to achieve her plan, which was to build herself a very high fortune and then take her revenge over all the peoples she hated, which was her main and in fact only goal in life, reach the black iron gates of revenge after the long, steep hard way slithering through thorns, and picking up every single scrap of money she could get her ghastly white hand on.

Arach went right in the Bird Tavern, and spent the little free time she had before her work drinking with some facetious thief, and playing Thief-Chess with him. She had already loosed three games and won five, when she heard a voice saying, in the corridor just behind her table:

'I'm tired, Yrees, and I am not hungry, I wish not to be deranged.'

'Very well, Master Hawkke,' answered Yrees's sensuous voice.

Quickly, Arach slipped in the corridor, and went to rest against the door she knew was to be the hunter's door. The thief, meanwhile, pulled his game back in his pocket, and went to rob in the streets, without even feeling suspicious or curious. The girl was dark and bad looking enough for him to know what kind of thing she had abandoned him to do.

Pulling herself closer to the cold stoned wall and tightening her hand around the narrow, sharp dagger she had taken from one of the many pockets of her cloak, Arach waited that the Hunter had finish his little talk with another hunter, and straightened when she heard his firm, quick steps. When he finally came past her, brisk and rapid, there was no one in the corridor, and a smile of triumph came to her small red lips as she slowly, nearly casually pulled herself upright, and walked as silent as a shadow behind him. When he opened the door with a little golden key, she raised the dagger, and stroke, quickly, the blade flashing quick-silver in her fist.

As quick as thunder light, his hand grabbed her forearm, threw her in the room, where she crushed against the stone wall, and slid down the hard floor like a rag doll, while he locked the door behind the two of them. Hissing with exasperation and fury, and self-hatred, cursing viciously for this spoiled murder that would have added a few golden coin to her heap, she gathered herself on her bruised knees, and started looking for her dagger, taking her faded black hair away from her eyes with a blind, angry gesture, thinking irresistibly of the lost reward. The dagger, unfortunately, it was in his hands she found it. Her mouth twisting without she could stop it in a warped, lugubrious way, a thin hiss escaping her crimson lips, she raised her eyes toward him.

He stood just before her, looking extremely ironical, and the beauty of his predator-like face was striking. His eyes were of the golden color of an eagle's piercing eyes, even the same almond shape, his noose was crooked like a beak, and his lips were tight and white, distorting with an arrogant expression of utter superiority. Dressed with brown leather breeches and a brown leather sleeve-less vest over a brown velvet tunic, he was very tall and slim, but with arms and a torso finely muscled, and the fit, elastic, elegant slenderness of a feline. And his hands were long and slim, like hers, but claw-like, with black gloves of fine leather.

'An assassin?' he said slowly, in his young, harsh, ironical and cruel voice, 'How delightfully interesting…'

'Give me my weapon and let me go,' she said hoarsely, slowly getting on her unsteady feet.

'Do you really think I would do this?' he asked, in a mocked serious tone.

Again, her snake hiss. She staggered to the locked door, but he caught her back, seized her wrist, and unceremoniously threw her on the bed in the corner of the small room, and asked:

'Why do you were trying to kill me?'

She sat, and, throwing him a hateful look:

'That's none of your problem.'

'It is,' he said calmly, sitting on a chair next to the bed.

'I was paid,' she finally said, and tried to go once more, but again, her threw her back on the bed, as if she was but a vulgar rag doll.

'Who?'

'Someone,' she answered, still lying down.

'Who?'

'Someone,' she replied, sitting up.

He lunged to her, like a leaping puma, and sent her a slap, right in the face, so hard she collapsed on his pillow. Her hair was all over her face, and she was burning with humiliation, but she said nothing, clenching her teeth to stop herself screaming; and he seized her by the wrists, between the end of her ragged sleeves and the top of the cracked leather glove, and squeezed them so tightly, so harshly, she bit her own lip, drawing blood she could taste at the tip of her slim pointed tong.

'Who?' he asked again, his thin lips twisting horribly.

'A woman. Blond. Tall. Beautiful. With a fine nose. That's all I know,' she said in a low voice, writhing on the bed, stupefied by the unbearable pain his iron hand around hers was causing.

He suddenly released, her, and she collapsed on his pillows a second time. Around her frail white wrists, there were two red circles, and she was so exhausted she didn't move, lying on this man's bed, smelling his sweet, masculine perfume on the white pillow. Hawkke, meanwhile, was thinking, a hand in his glorious fall of glossy black hair, his lids half drawn on the glittery golden ancient of his eagle eyes. He suddenly seemed to wake up, and his eyes, like fire arrows, fell on the girl. A girl on his bed. A girl with her messy faded black hair spread raggedly on his pillows, her pale translucent lids closed over her knives-like eyes, her crimson lips slightly opened, her chest rising and falling rapidly at the rhythm of her wild breath, a spidery hand forgotten on his leathered thighs.

This girl was an assassin. He had an assassin lying on his bed. A thin, heartless, pale faced, miserable child of an assassin, and she was on his bed. He leaned over her, but she hastily bolted up, and staggeringly tried to stand up. She was so dizzy she swayed on her legs, and, shaking all over, she slowly made her way to the locked wooden door.

'It is no question that you go away,' he hissed in her ear, as he dragged her back on the narrow bed, 'Sleep,' he added, tossing her upon it and leaning back away, 'We're going at dawn.'

**Author's Incredibly Sense-less After-note: aha, so, what do you think about Hawkke? Or about any of my characters? Hope you like them and that you do or you don't, just tell me, which means, REVIEW! Remember about this curse I told you about? Well, it's still here, and don't play Buffy, and try to draw the curse off with equally reasonable and horrid means such as onions, garlic, little brothers and uurgh :_shivers_: Unsharpened Pencils…Don't, just don't. Because there's a counter curse, and Master Yoda's gonna send Count Dooku, I mean, Master Kenobi to get ye if you do. Got the thing? By the, way, I just wanted to ask, don't you think weddings are sad? Anyway. Just review, that's all I ask. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Kind of Weird Note: On and ahoy, maties, for t'next chap'er o' thay tayle! Aye aye, cap'ain—oh, be quiet Bob, or detention! (this, you see, was my sailor personality, Bob, and then my teacher personality, Madame Esmeralda Sharpe: you see, how unlucky can one be?) Anyway: aboard for the continuation of this fairly interesting tale. Hope you like it, and don't die of malaria reading it. I mean, if you aren't Sauron, Saruman,Viggo Mortensen or my brothers, who are the only persons I wouldn't mind dying of malaria. Well, Sauron's fairly nice, but I don't like the bit about him being only an eye, it's kind of freaky. As for Saruman, he is a brilliant man (I mean, magician), but he is kind of sly, and I hate slyness. Vigo M.? Never mind. Just read, and enjoy. And Review, Of Course. **

**Chapter Three**

**The _Gleaming Stick_**

When she heard the man's harsh voice abruptly telling her to wake up, Arach's first move was to reach, quicksilver, for her dagger, usually in a pocket of her muddy-brown coat. As she found nothing, her fingers only encountering the dead mouse, a few grains and three little vials, she abruptly sat up, looking around her, blinking in the raw light coming in the room by the clean, clear curtain-less window. Hawkke completed to wake her up with a vigorous cuff, which immediately threw her into a great fury.

'You have no right to strike me like that!' she yelled, tossing her legs from the bed to the clean wooden floor.

The door opened with a slight creak, and a handsome, attractive maid with a long plait of blond curls and long lashes of sober appeal came in, looking anxious:

'What is the mat—'

The strange scene under her languorous eyes made her quiet. Arach, pale with sleep and with her lips bloodier than ever in the ghastly of her small face, looking enraged, in her big brown threadbare cloak, on the bed; and Hawkke, even more pale, his eyes narrow slits of gold, squeezing the dagger he was about to pull in a pocket of his own rich velvet and fur coat in his gloved hand. But the only thing Yrees really noticed as she stepped back was Arach's milk-white throat among the dark material of her clothes. Looking from Hawkke to Arach in a flabbergasted way, she stammered out:

'Oh…I…Her…You…'

Yrees drew back and closed the door as fast as she had opened it, snapping the panel shut. Arach and Hawkke turned their head to the door, listening to the woman's pace dying away in the corridor, and then two trails of scarlet blemished her opaline cheeks, as she understood what that silly wench had believed she had seen.

'I am not going anywhere,' she declared in a very stubborn way, standing up.

'You are going to come with me; I need you to help me to find your employer.'

'I needed money!' cried Arach, exasperated, 'I just had to kill and take the money! Ha!' she then cried, throwing her hands in the air, 'What a pity that I had to kill you!'

'Aha, you regret then…,' he said mockingly, gathering svelte arrows he was pulling in a leather quiver, 'I am honored…

'Yeah, I regret I had not just poisoned you!' she replied, immediately stuffing her fist in her mouth, as if trying to cram the words back inside.

He instantaneously got the thread:

'Poison? Where do you find the poison?' he hissed, dropping down the quiver, which fell with a discreet, soft sound, as he reached out to grab her frail wrists, which were still aching from his torture of the day before.

'Let go of me, or I will scream,' she said threateningly, all too aware that she was for the first time at the mercy of someone, that she was, in fact, the prey instead of the hunter.

'Where!' he snarled.

'I bought it,' she lied, and tears were starting to gleam in her eyes, liquid crystals of suffering reflecting the jet, so unbearable was the pain in her wrists as he twisted them, squeezing the blood out of them.

'Liar!' he yelled, 'You perfectly know that you need a fortune to buy poison here! The only place you can get poison from is the Alchematoria of Nariee!'

'I have a friend Master,' she said, on the off chance, already knowing it was hopeless as she looked in the gold of his remarkable eyes.

'You're a master, then!' he exclaimed, looking like an illuminated, 'No,' he corrected himself, 'You're too young. You are an apprentice. I should've known'

He released her, and she immediately started rubbing her poor sore wrists, looking at him accusingly. He lunged for his quiver, quickly tossed it over his head around his torso, and in a movement, gathered all the things he needed, then dragged her out of the bedroom, through the already crowded corridors of the Bird's Tavern, in the grey roads were the cold lights of metallic sunless dawn were starting to appear, bathing everything in a grey flood of dirty light. Subtly, she tried to slip away from him, but each time his hand tightened over her searingly painful wrist, and as the pain grew too much for her to ignore it or even pretend to, she finally followed him without protestations, nearly running so long and quick were his steps on the stones floor.

He dragged her all the way down the village, and finally he arrived at his destination: the port. Even if it was nearly still the morning, the port was already full fit to burst. Sailors in large, coarse white shirts and dark brown trousers of crude cotton were shouting, laughing, working, running, fighting all over the place, merchants in rich, unsuiting velvets were yelling at each other in what they obliviously thought to be a polite, subtly calm and reserved way, while the ships were coming in and out, massif or tiny, light of heavy, rich or poor, while the spot of dim light created by the sun behind the thick screen of clouds was slowly appearing above the faraway forest which overhanged the slight curve of the land over the village, opposite the sea, chasing the mists of smoky whites toward the dark, serenely dangerous waters.

Still holding Arach by her thin arm, Hawkke went toward a fat, red faced man, who was barking out orders to his sailors, dressed in blue and red, with a large feathered hat in his hands and shining leather boots with squeaked like trapped mice as he walked on the wet stones of the floor.

'Are you the captain of the _Gleaming Stick_?' Hawkke asked unceremoniously, and arrogantly.

'Aye aye good sir,' said the captain, smiling a wide smile like a piano's keys at Arach as if she was the one that had asked the question, 'Captain Grain, at yer service, good sir.'

'Your ship is leaving StonePort , isn't she?'

'Thass right!' boomed the captain 'We're leavin' just now for the GreenLand o' Silver Ocean. But I'm sorry to tell ye vat we have no more place, be gum,' he added in a hypocritically sorry, his eyes gleaming at Arach's huge coat pockets.

Arach withdrew slightly behind Hawkke, looking with hostility at the fat, greedy sweaty man, while Hawkke took a fat, heavy purse out of one of his smarlty discreet pockets and conjured on his palm five shining, beautiful Empire Golds. The Captain's eyes started to shine like the coins, and he said in a sweet voice.

'Oh, but in viss case…There's prhaps a li'le place left…'

'I am paying for the kid,' said Hawkke, scornfully dumping the coins in the merchant's avid hand.

'I'm not a kid!' protested Arach, glaring at Hawkke in her narrow eyes, and viciously pinching his arms, without any result.

'You look like one too me,' he retorted, and, turning to Captain Grain, 'When are we going?'

'Juss now. Ye go to the _Gleamin' Stick_, I'm comin' in a minute, t'time to pay several things,' answered the merchant, and he disappeared in the crowd of sailors and merchant that was overpopulating the port.

Hawkke sized Arach's arm, and went on dragging her along down the port, dashing past behind a big warehouse. She suddenly stopped, and slipped away from his hold as quickly and slyly as a slippery fish in the hands of a starving child.

'Hey, I am not going anywhere till you don't tell what exactly you're doing,' she said, walking slowly away as he tried to catch her back, his fine face twisted with irritation and annoy for the counter-time and her own rebelliousness.

'I am taking you to my domains, in GreenLands, where you're going to help me to find the woman that paid you,' he said, stopping to follow her, his golden eyes glaring at her.

'She didn't pay me, that's the great problem of my life,' she replied, still stepping back, half-dancing, away from his grasp, 'and anyway, I'm sure you can find her yourself, you're a hunter after all, farewells.'

Turning around quick as silver, she tore in a run, away from him. In a few minutes, had taken hold of her yet again:

'It's dangerous for you to stay here now that you failed at killing me.'

'Ah, because you care about my personal life, now, do you? How sweet,' she said sarcastically, trying to pull away from him.

'And the fact that you are in danger puts _me_ in danger too,' he went on, still glaring at her as if to try to make her understand by the only force of his powerful eyes.

'But I am _not_ in danger,' she cried, starting to feel annoyed, 'And let _go_ of me!'

'The woman that wanted you to kill me will certainly be very upset that you failed,' he said, 'she must have been mad anyway, to give you a so hard job.'

He said it without irony, looking at her in a way she found far too pitiful to be born.

'Hey, I am one of the bests Assassin of StonePort,' she said, trying to free herself from his grasp, and ready to bite him.

'You are certainly not very good at killing Hunter, I may say.'

'You may not. I killed nine hunters at all in my life,' she said, ceasing to try to free herself, and tossing back her head in an arrogant way.

'And how many peoples have you killed, in your life?'

'Not a lot, alas. Didn't have time. Sixteen,' she answered.

He couldn't help being surprised. He looked at her with a mixture of admiration and disgust in his lofty eyes, and said:

'Sixteen? How possibly can a kid kill sixteen people?'

'I am not a kid!' she yelled, and pulled away from him so fiercely he let her go.

He was going to said something, but at this moment they heard a great shout that make both of them pause:

'The _Gleamin' Stick_ is leaving in two minutes! The _Gleamin' Stick_ in leaving in two minutes!'

With a grunt of anger, he snatched her arm and started to run, ignoring her protestations.

The _Gleaming Stick_ was not a very big ship. It was light, dark, with beautiful white sails undulating in the northern wind. Sailors were starting the pull the anchor up, and Hawkke and Arach had to run to embark in time. The Merchant, who was yelling orders, seemed please to see them, and he told them when he had finished bawling orders:

'Yer rooms are just next te mine; I am takin'yous to vem.'

He took them to the rooms. It was in fact just a room, but rather large, with a big wooden bed in a corner, a table and two chairs, and two chests in another corner. The merchant smiled in a conspiratory way, and withdrew, closing the door silently behind him. Hawkke let go of the young girl's wrist, and sat on the bed, sighing.

'There is no way I sleep in that room,' spat Arach, thrusting her hands in her pockets in a definitive way.

'Why?' he asked, leaning back on the ancient-smelling pillows. He seemed very tired, annoyed, and he turned his back to her, without even waiting for an answer.

Arach, silently, came behind him, and bent over the pillow. He was sleeping, his eyes shut, his face pale and drawn. Arach smiled wickedly, and, pulling both of her hands over his arm and resting her slight body against his warm one, she said:

'Hey, it wouldn't be difficult for me to go, would it?'

He turned his head toward her, and opened his amber-gold eyes menacingly, he muttered:

'What do you want me to tell you? Let me sleep, that's all I ask.'

He turned back toward the wall, but she gripped his arm tight, shaking it, and again:

'You're tired?'

He grunted and incoherent answer, and didn't move.

'Why?'

'It wasn't very easy for me to sleep, as you were on my bed,' he said, turning to her, looking at her with the irritation turning to fury.

'And who's fault is it?' she sing-sang, grinning meanly.

He suddenly bolted upright, and she stepped back, surprised, telling herself that it was perhaps not a so good idea to annoy him.

'What the hell do you finally want?' he yelled.

'I want to make you regret taking me with you in those GreenLands Domains of yours,' she said, in a ringing voice.

'Well, if it makes you happy, I am already regretting, but I have no choice. Now, you let me sleep or something seriously bad is going to happen to this fine frame of yours.'

And he lied back down, abruptly turned, and closed his eyes one more time in a definitive way. Arach stood up, and said very loudly:

'Right then, sleep, you bloodless zombie, I am going to look for something funny on the deck.'

And she went away from the room, slamming the door behind her. Up on the busy deck, she started to prowl around, annoying the sailors she was encountering, making them lost their time, telling them lots of lies just for the fun of it. When she was tired of annoying everyone without result, she went to lean against the edge of the boat, and looked at the brooding, deep black, sea, gazing toward the disappearing stone city which she hadn't leave for four years, and had become her home, her cradle of miserable sufferings and misty darkness. If she had not be with the moody, attractive Hawkke, she would have had great fun, having an adventure, thinking in her young mind about blood-thirsty pirates, desperate treasure in the middle of thundering sea and such deliciously foolhardy things of the ocean. However, after spending several hours dreaming about breathless adventures, desperate flights and slaughtery fights, terrifying pirates, greedy, scavenging hunters, frighteningly huge strongholds, and everything she could think of, she started to feel tired and bored of irrationality. She pulled her coat of, and decided to climb to the crow's nest, where the look-out was gazing at the horizon, chewing a peace of leathery bread. When he saw the young girl hoist herself in his little basket, he gasped out loud and pitilessly scolded her, with angry words and a vigorous cuff; but soon he had shared a piece of his bread with her, and they were talking like long-friends. It was rather cool, so high, and he gave her a fur blanket he kept in a corner for his own use, in which she cuddled, before falling heavily asleep, serenely breathing in the slashing green wind that tore invisible screams into the briny air.

**Author's Thoroughly Silly After-Note: so, ladies and gemmen, what thought you of this small peace of writing? Bob likes it—we don't care what Bob is thinking! He's academic level is always as lowa and—shut up Sharpe! (Sorry, those two are always arguing, but Minotaur's always here to knock them down—oops, he's a little bit too violent today, andkdjbsa,ejkfch.s—stop it, will you, Mino? Sorry, girls and boys, but this poor Mino's not a really good typer…Oh gosh, my body is really crowded today.) Anyway, did you like this third Chapter? I think its not bad—I only wish I could have been there to annoy the handsome hunter—but :_fatalistic sigh_: all the handsome men are gone form our planet long ago. We only have the old men and the kids left…Anyway :_heart breaking-sob, small sniff_: just REVIEW, if you don't me to send you a mental bomb that will have you running down the street covered in acne under moonlight—told you I could be cruel at times, niark niark niark (you, the evil snicker…) **


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Awfully Boring Note: Aha, this is a good chapter, and I congratulate myself greatly. I hope you'll share my opinion, but still, the best's to come. And of course, Review, beside enjoying, which you'll surely do, either by loving it, or by the fit of Killing Tickles that will reach you if you don't like it—oh, I'm such a good witch! By the way, who read the new Harry Potter? It was wicked! I nearly cried at the end, I was so shocked! Anyway, just read, and Review. Just do it, and don't protest. That's all I am asking, got it? **

**Chapter four**

**The Wreck**

When she woke up, the nearly invisible sun was already falling behind the grey line of the sea, and the mist was slowly creeping over the smooth silvery-black surface. Next to her, the look-out was looking at the horizon, his face tightening with the coming of the night, which he hated implacably.

'Aniting 'apen'd while I woss sleepin'?' she asked limply, stretching.

'Yeah, a buck woz yellin' everywhere yer name, but I didna tell 'im ye was 'ere, as ye ask'd me.'

Eagerly, delighted with herself and the sailor, Arach stood up, straightened her tunic and her corset, and asked, beaming:

'So, what did he do?'

''e storm'd back in 'is room, and said ye were gonna get some o' 'is news.'

'Did he think that I had escaped while he slept?'

'Yeah, fink-so, but well, I dunno really for sure.'

'Too good, really, thanks a lot, mate,' she said, shaking his hand in the most masculine way she could master, and then she jumped away from the crow's nest and made her way down the mast, laughing under her breath.

When she was on the deck, she went quietly to see what he was doing in the room, and saw he was sitting in a corner, draped in his cloaks, smoking a pipe. She came in and closed the door behind her, saying carelessly:

'I had a lot of fun, what about you?'

He didn't answer, and she couldn't even see his eyes, so she said:

'All right, keep quiet if you want, I am going to look for something to eat.'

And she turned away to go, but he spoke:

'The dinner is just finished.'

'Oh', she said, and added, 'Anyway, I am going away from here. You are too lifeless.'

But he wasn't going to listen that, he stood up, and, walking toward her, he whispered:

'Do you realize that I spent five hours looking for you?'

'Why?' she asked, as if it was the last that was counting, 'After all, the only thing you seem to care about is your own precious little life, no? Or…'

'Do you realize, that I am going to hit you if you don't shut your extravagantly large mouth,' he went on, still walking on her.

'Do you realize,' she said, half amused, escaping him, sliding toward the door, 'That I am not going to let you do…'

But the slap came. It hit her on the cheek, so hard she completely lost any sense; she saw red. Throwing herself on him with a long roar of rage, she punched him on the face, as they both collapsed back on the bed. She gave him another punch, and tried to push him away from her with all the power of her arms, but his hands grabbed hers, and with implacable force, he threw her away, and she crashed against the wall, like a wave against a cliff, where she seemed to break herself, and collapsed on the floor. Breathing heavily, she sat up, dazed, then she shook her head, and looking at Hawk, who was standing very straight, hissing with rage and fury, pale with his golden eyes sparkling liquid burning metal, she sighed, faintly, and like a cat, stretched, and curled up against the wooden wall, squeezing the cloak around her thin shoulders.

Hawkke couldn't help to be surprised by this sudden withdrawal. He went to lie on the bed to sleep, and thinking about where could have she hide while he was looking for her. This girl wasn't as stupid and ungraceful as he had thought.

When she woke up, it was in the middle of the night, and the room was in a total darkness, apart from a candle that was burning weakly on the table. She was surprise to find herself on the bed, her head sunk in the clean pillows, and her eyes started to look for the hunter, whom she found sitting on a chair next to the table, smoking a pipe. The light of the candle was illuminating his face, and she saw his gaze on her, and lowered her eyes to the point he was fixing. A glimpse of white flesh, between the slipped black material of her cloak and the belt that held up her breeches, was floating pure misty white in the darkness, and his golden gaze upon this hip of hers seemed to burn her by its flame. Blushing, she pulled the shirt straighter around her, and turning her back to him, she closed her eyes, but was late to fall asleep, haunted by the expression she had saw on this unbearably beautiful face.

When she woke up again, it was even later on the night, but this time it wasn't by herself she had woken up. A bloodcurdling scream had echoed all along the passenger corridor, waking the everyone:

'The Wreck! We're all gonna die! The Wreeeeeeck!'

In a movement, Arach jumped on her feet, and ran to the door, but Hawkke was quicker, he had already reached the door, which he slammed back so hard the door bounced right back from the wall, flinging Arach straight into him, as he caught the yeller: a young boy who's pale freckle-bombarded young face was ghastly with a fright beyond any rational fright, a fright way past terror. Arach raised herself on the tip of her feet to take a look at him over the hunter's shoulder, eager, her eyes gleaming, immensely satisfied with the mayhem, as he asked:

'What are talking about, young fool?'

'You are the fool, not him,' Arach commented smugly, but the look he tossed her over his shoulder succeeded in shutting her up.

'It's the Wreck, my Lord, I swear I saw it!' the boy yelled, looking down at his big hands, and then screaming hysterically: 'On the water, my Lord, she was gliding toward us! We're all going to die, my Lord! We're doomed!'

'Who's the Wreck?' inquired Arach with great interest over the hunter's shoulder.

'She's the worst pirate ship in the entire Silver Kingdom, my Lady!' shrieked the boy feverishly.

'Is it!' exclaimed Arach excitedly, and she ran down the long dark corridor, ducking through the chaotic flow of passengers and sailors that were rushing away from their cabins, with Hawkke following her, yelling at her to go to the hiding cave with the women. Instead, Arach went to the great solid chest where the sailors were arming themselves with cutlasses and other weapons, in the middle of the crowded deck, and, taking one in her hands, brandishing it in the air, she bellowed at the top of her voice:

'All the women, old men and children go to the hiding cave! All the sailors, young men and warriors on the deck!'

Most of the passengers were men, and the few women and old people ran directly to the cave, hiding under their canes or skirts the cowards. Most of the travelers, foolhardy young men eager to prove their valor, came to pick up a weapon, looking extremely conceited in spite of their fear. Weaving through the sea of bawling men, elbowing her way through yells of surprise and protest as different member of the crowd felt a sharp arm being thrust into their stomach or ribs, Arach went to join a responsible-looking blond young man, and abruptly asking him:

'Where is the captain?'

'He's gone in the caves with the wimmen,' answered the blond man, tying a belt around his waist, and pulling two cutlasses in them.

'What!' shouted Arach

'Well, 'e canta-fight. He's just a merchant, ach, avter all,' he said, shrugging in an exasperatingly nonchalant fashion.

'Who is responsible here, then?' she bellowed, grasping his muscled arm.

'Me,' said the blond youth, and he said the 'Me' so proudly that he seemed to say 'me, the supreme master of the whole universe and beyond'.

'Ah,' said Arach, splendidly disdainful, 'and you know anything about this 'Wreck'?'

'What d'ye mean?'

'Are the men more or less than my men?' asked Arach importantly, waving in a great unleashed movement at the crowd of sailors and men on the deck.

'I think more,' he said, and added thoughtfully: 'perhaps less.'

'You're definitely stupid,' she declared, and went away from the useless person.

When she was back at the chest, she snapped it close, and hauled herself lightly on top of its wooden lid, and yelled:

'Are all the weak people safely in the bunkers?'

A few of the sailors looked up, surprised, if not utterly flabbergasted, to see this piece of white silk of a girl perched over the chest of weapons and shouting her head of as if she actually owned them all. After they had howled a simple: 'Aye,' she went on:

'And does anyone here knows about the arming of the Wreck!'

'Aye aye! They're an awful lot Ma'am!' cried a handful of sailors from the front, while the silence slowly grew behind them.

Arach opened her mouth wide to ask some more details, but she didn't have time, the lookout suddenly screamed from the crow's nest, his voice quivering with fright:

'She's coming toward us! She's there, by the sea-witch! Ach!'

But his shout didn't equal in stimulation Arach's formidable:

'Fight for your honor, my boys! And the cowards will get my cutlass in their ribs! To us Victory!'

**Author's Scientifically Wrong After-note: Ach, to us Victory!—shut up, Bob, or else, you'll get a deten—SHUT UP E.Sharpe! All right then, where were we? Hope you all liked this chapter, I think it's good. This chapter, as well as five and six, were all in one chapter at the beginning, Chapter Two, called 'The Wreck', and so were the first and second chapter, which were originally the first chapter, entitled 'At the Bird's Tavern.' I cut them into smaller chapters for the reader( consequently you, whoever you are)'s suitability. Hope you liked this chapter Four anyway: and hope it prepared you well for the coming Sea Battle, hé hé. Now, _do_ review, for thou knoweth not thy doom as thee readeth these lines… **


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Scaring Note: well, ladies and gemmen, brats and kids, persons of indeterminate gender, and welcome, welcome indeed, to the Fifth and bloody chapter of The Spider's Heir! I said _bloody_, for you can be _sure_ that blood's gonna spur! Yeah, blood's gonna flood, all hot and crimson—gosh, now Minotaur's getting exited. I'd better not let him read this, it would give him bad ideas. I mean, he's already really angry after E.Sharpe, but if he reads this…erm, never mind. Just read, and enjoy!**

**Chapter Five**

**Sea Battle**

It averred that the wreck's fighters were really well armed, and that they were much more numbered than the _Gleaming Stick_'s. They were all powerful, beautiful, cheerfully fierce men, and they were even few of them that were old men, but they fought wildly, and in less than one hour of savage combat, they had taken hold of nearly all the ship, apart from the bunkers, and the deck were the huge fight was taking place. Under the orders of Arach, the men of the _Gleaming Stick_ first did well, however, the Wreck's splendid pirates weren't stupid; with a wit as quick as the flashing of their swords in their enemies' chests, they immediately understood that the men were holding because of the girl, and started to try to reach her. Arach, even though she was but a small chit of eighteen, wasn't helpless with a cutlass; in one movement, with a grace sweeping and extraordinary, she slit open the necks of five pirates, as cold-bloodedly and easily as if she was tearing through water; but finally she had to withdraw under the cover of a narrow empty corridor a few minutes, touched and wounded by an arrow sharp as her tong. Gritting her teeth till it hurt, ghastly pale with the bloody wound of her mouth flashing in her face like a ruby in the snow, she sharply pulled the arrow away from her arm, tossing it away, and tried to tie a piece of her sleeve she had ripped around her arm; but it wasn't easy with only one hand, and she had to used her hurting teeth, which were so gritted with the pain that she could do absolutely nothing. And she raged because of her state of idleness, thinking about the men upstairs that were probably despairing, thinking that she had fled. And she jumped when she felt two hands, quick and soft against the flesh that the ripped sleeve had naked, tie the cloth tightly around the bleeding wound. She raised her eyes and saw Hawkke, looking down at her face, his face as pale as the finest carven ivory, and with blood dripping down the alluringly pure line of his jaw, and under his shin.

'Come with me, we are escaping with several other sailors,' he whispered, his mouth to her ear, but she sharply pulled away, and her hand tightened around the moist pommel of her dripping weapon:

'Never!' she protested savagely, 'I'll fight with the men!'

He caught hold of her thin frail arm again, and pulling her close to him, so close she felt his blood on her cheek, he murmured in her cheek:

'I don't want to loose you now. You'll do whatever you want after you've helped me…'

She felt so weak to feel his gentle lips against her own jaw, she felt so dazed between his muscled arms, so good to feel the warmth of his fine feline body against her own thin and cold one, and his short breath in her raven hair, for a splinter of a moment she wanted nothing else but to go with him, and to stay in his arms forever. But then, her dagger-sharp brain told her that he had certainly taken her against him because he knew she wouldn't be able to protest, and she harshly pulled away from him, hissing in her quivering breath.

'No,' she whispered, and then, seized by a rush of fury, she screamed: 'I ain't a bloody coward! I'll fight with my men whatever happens, and damned be you!' and ran away from him, ignoring his hateful cry of 'They aren't _your_ men!'

On the deck, the wooden floor was starting to get seriously slippery with all the blood from the corpses and agonizing bodies, while the fight was getting more and more violent—and desperate. Painfully hauling her tiny body on the thick barrister of the boat, then stood up on her feet in a way surprisingly balanced, Arach yelled, brandishing her cutlass, and with a voice full of a wild tenderness and desperate kindness:

'Oh fly, my loves, fly for your lives! And may the Nereid by with you! Fly, and be at peace! You've saved your honour! _Go_!'

And then she ravenously threw herself back in the mêlée, from which the sailors were now running away, half grateful for the girl's words, half grudging her being so visibly morally better than them, and throwing themselves in the dark waters, while she killed, in a single graceful swing of her arm three more pirates. And then, she heard a voice, young, but harsh and guttural, calling out in a tearingly raging voice:

'I want her alive! Catch the girl alive! If anything happens to her…'

Definitely a stupid thing to say aloud.

As quick as she could her make her legs go, she ran away from the pirates that were now all desperately trying to catch her, and nimbly climbed on the breast work of the ship, and pulled the blade of the sword against her young feeble chest. The pirates, like one, had grown all still, and as the silence fell like the sky on the day of apocalypse; she, peacefully, haughtily, studied their faces; some were young and handsome, other old and terrible looking, some with faces from the south, from the north, from the east, from the east, from between, and some so horrifyingly deformed by awesome scars that they were unrecognizable; and all heavily armed with swords, cutlasses, bows and axes, all drenched from head to foot with blood, all looking exhilarated, but surprised in front of this insolent, spidery girl, who was looking at them with the irritating air of an almighty queen.

'Sorry. If you want me alive, sea rats, you'll have to swear you won't kill anyone!' she finally declared, a great stroke of nocturnal wind tearing back her jet black mane of hair in the night.

'You are not in position to talk, my beauty,' tossed a dark-haired pirate, with a face beautiful to suicide, a bloody red scarf around his head, and dark, shining eyes like glittery gemstones.

'I am,' she serenely tossed back, 'because if you kill one more person, I kill myself.'

'And so what?' he asked carelessly, but he nonetheless seemed annoyed, and surprised by her audacious, nearly stupid words.

'And so your captain won't be very happy, will he?' she cried out in ringing tones, and looking down at the men delightfully, raised in front of all their eyes, with her long coat flying in the night, and her pale face gleaming like a opal in a casket of black satin.

'Listen, you've been brave, my love, braver than the captain of this dead ship, who's fled away with some women and some cowards. We accept not to kill anyone, on the condition that you may join us, and become a pirate like a person with so many talents ought to be.'

'I wanna talk to your captain,' she said, stubbornly.

'I am,' answered the beautiful, dark eyed young pirate.

'Oh, then, let me tell you something, poor _little_ man, I don't wanna join such men as yous. I wanna go back to my land. So here is _my_ proposition for you: I am going to tell you where are the treasures on the ship and you'll leave them be. Do you accept?'

'I am very well able to kill you, and to kill everyone, take the women and children to ravish and sell them, take the boat and the treasures, don't you think?' he asked, disdainful and ironical.

'Sure,' said Arach, and she smiled, suddenly looking brightly amused, 'If I were you, it would be I would have do, without the shadow of a doubt.'

The pirates looked at each other, clearly gobsmacked. An old man grinned widely to a puzzled looking, novice young pirate. She chuckled, and added:

'So then, no one will be able to say that I didn't try to save this measly ship. Anyway, I tell you farewell, Cap'ain, and I would give you a kiss, because you are a man that I ought to like, but the trouble is; I can't do it right now, so I'll do it another time. Faaaarewells...'

And she tossed herself backwards, and fell in an infinitely gracious way into the waters, under the astonished eyes of the pirates, and accompanied with the booming laugh of the old pirate, who seemed to have never been so satisfied in his whole life. The captain, young and wild, whose pride had been thrown on the floor, stabbed, and then stamped upon, screamed out with rage, and shouted to his men:

'Catch her! Alive, that I can punish her! No one has ever treated me like that!'

And all his men, those pirates that looked so clever and invincible, jumped in the water after the girl. He turned away, and added to the three men that had stayed with him, and in a dark tone but calm way:

'And after all, she owns me a kiss.'

And a low voice, quivering with anger, snarled behind him:

'She's mine.'

**Author's Arrogant After-note: so? Not bad, eh? I love the way the person who wrote this (me? Ooh, I had forgotten :_simpersimper_:) Anyway, I love the way I did the bloody battle, with the small, quiet moment between Hawkke and Arach slipped in the middle... And I also love the conversation between Arach and the Pirate Captain. Well, I'll just let you have your own word; no, no, you don't need to pay one pound for each review, I swear—just REVIEW, okay?**


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Apocalyptic Note: hello, hello, hello, there :_Count Olaf-ic way of saying those three identical words_: I missed you guys…Anyway, on and aboard for the dazzling next chapter of this ruinous, disastrous story. Hope the title's well chosen, you'll have to tell me, and please review, and tell me what you like and don't like about all this. And tell me, most importantly, what you think of my characters. Sorry if I make some mistakes: for the typos, because I type to fast, and for the obvious, odious ones, well, I'm French, so you'll have to forgive me, he he…Anyway, read, sit back, relax, eat sweets/ boiled postman fingers/pastas, enjoy, and REVIEW. **

**Chapter Six**

**She Who Trapped Them**

The leader of the pirates, instead of turning around to face the owner of the voice, as it was Hawkke's idea he would, stepped smoothly aside, and the hunter's strike went in the air. Regaining hastily his countenance, Hawkke struck again, furiously, and the pirate escaped again; and they started to fight a quick, intense fight, while the other pirates watched and started to make bets.

'So she is your beloved, isn't she?' said the pirate, stepping backward, turning over his sword in his hand, and then back forward to hit, 'And has she promised you a kiss?'

Hawkke didn't answer, and fought more ardently than before, raging, and the pirate had to move very quick not to be cut into pieces by the furious hunter.

'No? And why didn't you come to save her, this pale girl of yours? Why had she had to face alone us pirates?'

'Because she was too stupid to listen to me!' screamed Hawkke, and his blade cleaved through the air, and went to open a large wound on his adversary's chest, ripping open the dazzling white shirt and splashing it with scarlet blood.

And the two fighters suddenly stopped, still, when the three pirates behind them cried together, and one of them said, faintly:

'The bitch! Poison!' and they collapsed all together in a heap.

Behind them came Arach, who smiled to the two men in a hatefully triumphant way. She was dripping with water, the tunic outlining the high curve of her young chest, her hair falling heavily in her back, a large pool of water growing around her. Tendrils of her black locks were already dry and crossing her face over her glittering eyes. She looked triumphant and delighted. She waved in the air a small bottle full of what looked like a kind of grey smoke, and brandished with her other hand its cork.

'What am I seeing?' she said in an exasperating tone of satisfaction and mockery, 'Two of my enemies, fighting each other without me? How, as you told me one day, hunter, how _delightfully interesting_!'

And with large wave of her arm, she circled them with the grey smoke. A few seconds later, they lost their consciousness, and with the dying feeling of anger greater than any hate, they heavily fell on the floor, the pirate on top of the hunter, while Arach tossed back her head to laugh.

Arach was witted. Not just witted, but also reckless, and foolhardy. The plan she had seen destroyed between the hands of the incredibly attractive captain pirate to whom she had promised a kiss had transformed itself in a diabolically intelligent and determinately ruthless plot. Let the stupid pirates in the water looking for her: she had climbed back on the ship, poisoned the few pirates left, then their Captain and Hawkke, and seized both the pirates' ship and the _Gleaming Stick_, and the command of the men left, whom she had rallied unbelievably easily, as they liked her already, because she had won them over jut before she had so noteworthily thrown herself in the waters, in which they had seen one of the most remarkable girl they'd ever seen disappear. Now she found herself at the command of an army of merry pirates, with two ships at her disposition, and holding prisoner both the pirates' Captain and the hunter that had dragged her in this splendid adventure. She was exulting.

Sitting in the most beautiful room of the Wreck, a lock of hair on her eyes, she was mirthfully looking at the two prisoners that were starting to wake up slowly on the large bed. Hawkke was the first to wake up completely, and he sat up on the bed, and stretched, and glared mutely at Arach, who was looking at him with her wide grin, a sword on her lap.

'Have you slept well, hunter?' she sing-sang.

'You have played finely, young assassin,' he spat, 'and if you want to know, I regret bitterly ever coming back to save you.'

'An assassin?' said the pirate, sitting up as well, and taking a hand toward his bare chest which she had carefully crossed with a white stripe of his shirt to bandage his wound.

'Of course,' replied Arach, turning her smile at him, 'What is your name, by the way?'

'Requin,' he answered, and added plaintively, 'Where am I? And what happened?'

'You are on my ship, and I poisoned you and the hunter with a Sleep Drug,' Arach smugly said.

'How?' he muttered, looking up at her pale jubilant face.

'She's coming from the Alchematoria of Nariee,' said Hawkke, bitterly.

He sighed in a pessimistic way and pulled his feet out of the bed, but when he moved to stand up, he felt Arach's sharp blade against his neck.

'I haven't finished to talk to you, hunter.'

She was about to go on, when sharp against her skin, silencing her completely, she felt a blade on her own neck. Quickly, she withdrew her sword from Hawkke, who seized his chance to grab two swords on the table next to the bed and run away from the room. And the voice in her ear:

'_What is mine is not thine_, goes the old saying.'

Requin grabbed and squeezed her fragile wrist so that her weapon fell on the wooden floor of the cabin, and, throwing his own dagger away from him, he nimbly turned her over to that she may face him.

'You see, your hunter has gone away,' he whispered in a vicious way, 'he will escape, and now I have you for myself. Remember you promised me a kiss?'

'I lie a lot,' she answered in a low quivering voice, trying vainly to get away from his lustful grasp.

In a slow, irresistible movement, he circled her waist with his bare arm, playing carelessly with her raven hair, his gentle fingers dancing on her tall lofty forehead, sliding down the pale curve of her cheek, then the sweet line of her jaw. He smiled as she hopelessly tried to pull away from his lascivious hold, and delicately, he bent to take a kiss; because it was the kiss he had fought, loosed and being tricked for. Her lips, tightly closed and deathly cold, parted irresistibly, yet grudgingly when his own tender ones brushed over them, and as she sharply inhaled, the rush of his burning breath filled her lungs, drugging her with his heady scent. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she relaxed in his finely muscled arms, feeling intently good against his strong, young, lean body, with his lips on hers, and his hands caressing the arch of her slender waist. Abandoning himself to the sheer delight of the embrace, Requin let go of both of them, so that they both fell back on the bed; and when she felt his sneaky, warm hand slipping under her rough humid shirt and caress her hip, she violently pulled away, with a cry, and tore herself savagely from him. Grinning, he sat up, and cried out mockingly, with a kind of lecherous fury:

'Tell me it didn't please you! Tell me you didn't enjoy!'

Trembling, feeling like a little mouse trapped by a splendid cat, she gathered herself away from him, but he was more powerful: he was a man, he was young, lean and full of an innate grace, and he desired her: he leapt upon her.

Unfortunately, he had forgotten the dagger. She snatched it, and squeezing it in her wrist, she violently punched Requin away from her, dashed to the narrow door, took up the key, bolted away from the room, and deftly locked it before he could have time to reach it. When she was outside with the door closed, she leaned against it, and sighed deeply, trying to chase the memory of the burning breath in her lung, the pressure of his delicious lips, his arms around her body, and his hand, so gentle, like a caress of silk, against her hip. She had barely time to think that immediately, she felt a gloved hand smashing on her mouth, and a rope quickly tying together her hands. She raised her dark glittery eyes toward him, and Hawkke's face was so tenebrous, so furious, with such an expression of jealousy and angry desire that she felt actually afraid.

Mutely, he dragged her along the dark corridors of the ship, until they reached a hidden passage toward a small lifeboat, in which he pushed her, still hand-tied, and followed her.

'I told you I won't let you till you don't help me to find the woman that wants my death,' he whispered in her ear, but the excuse was empty, and Arach knew it, without being able to do anything about it.

**Author's Pathetic After-Note: Here you go! Finished! We won't hear of the pirates for a good few chapters now. Hope you aren't dead, and like go on loving my story (I said, go on, because if you are reading this it means that you haven't let me down, and that you are unbelievably solid and resistant.) Anyway, just Review. Which means, review. Just do it. Do it, will you? Please, Pretty Please… **


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Deeply Idiotic Note: Ah! Here we go, the real beginning! A long, nice fat chapter, with delicious descriptions (I luuurve descriptions!) and colorful dialogues! Yeah! I know I must sound horrendously self-conceited, but well, one can't help feeling a certain pride when one reads one's own masterpiece…Admit it. Anyway, read on, and don't forget to _review_, which is a word you must never forget, and should better tattoo on your shin.**

**Chapter Seven**

**The Predator's lair**

It took them nearly three days and nights to reach the flamboyant GreenLands. At the first day, they had been luckily rescued by a tall, fast merchant caravel called the _Sweet Lily_, whose captain was a tall, thin, grey haired menacing man called Captain Dolpheen. Arach, bored to death, had spent her time annoying everyone she could find in anyway possible, and ruthlessly spitting at the surprised sailors, while Hawkke had stayed in their tiny room, locked in his silence and smoke, drawing deep puffs from his dark glossy pipe.

The immensely famous Port of GreenLands was a rarely beautiful, over-crowded, richly merry port; next to a bright, white, cheery city where the popular markets were abounding and the women held themselves handsomely, all of a beautiful and slim kind in their deliciously colored, grandly fine-looking dresses. It was a well-known city; with its numerous inns and taverns, its crowded markets, its magnificent gardens, and especially its remarkable weavers and tailors, who could make out of nearly nothing incredibly fine materials such as water-fine silks, rich luxurious velvets, gossamer dazzling laces and feather-light muslins, and make out of those garments of a rare magnificence and cheapness. The city was build very close to the port, climbing towards the cerulean canopy of the sky and clear, simple white roofs and twisted chimneys, and protected by a river that was separating it from the rest of the GreenLands, a long, glittering river called the Blue Lily, because of the lovely blue water-lilies that were always growing at its pure edges. This city was the main city of the GreenLands, the city of commerce and light, the city were all youths dreamed to live and win their place, which they usually could do with very few problems. Beyond were the many castles and manors of the Barons and Lords, their domains, and even farther beyond were the NorthLands, cold, desolated pale fields of dead trees, snowy, cold ground and solid lakes.

The moment they touched land, Arach casually jumped down and tried to give to the slip to the vigilant hunter, who vigorously pulled both her hands in her back to tie her again, and dragged her to a rag-clad, cute little boy who was selling two or three horses next to a vivid inn on which's wooden sign were two crossed, white horses. The boy peeped sheepishly up behind his brown strands at the hunter, and grinned encouragingly at his captive, who held her tongue at him, winked in spite of herself, and gave a tentative tug at her ropes, with no effects at all on either it or the hunter.

'How much do you sell your horses, little boy?' enquired coldly Hawkke, glancing at the three horses that were slowly eating the birthing grass with disgust in his haughty golden eyes.

'Five coins gold one, my Lord,' answered the boy, looking frightfully at Hawkke.

'Five coins gold for one of those corpses?' he said disdainfully.

'Stop talking like that to everyone!' said angrily Arach, 'Must you feel so superior you must think that everyone that is not a hunter is in the mud, you filthy little…'

'You shut your sweet vast mouth and try to keep your tongue behind your teeth,' he said, but she ignored him, turned to the frightened boy and said:

'For how much can I get a ship here, little brother?'

'You can have one for less than four hundred golden coins if you know where to look for them,' said the boy, gratefully.

'So much!' she exclaimed, slightly disappointed.

'What are you thinking about?' snapped Hawkke; he threw a bag of gold to the boy, and took a horse, on which he hauled Arach and then climbed himself.

'Stay close to me, assassin, lest you fall in the crowd,' he whispered softly in her ear, giving a small kick to the steed.

'Do not worry, if I fell, it would be from free will,' she replied, mournfully.

They rode in silence through the crowded city, until they finally crossed the great stone bridge over the sunny river, and went away from the shimmering Blue Lily into beautiful, emerald green fields were the grass was undulating like a sea of green waves under the Northern wind of GreenLands.

Arach, in front of him, was silent and still, the wind slashing her hair back on Hawkke's shoulder. The light and joyful sounds of GreenLands hurt her, and she nearly couldn't bear the delicate touch of light and soft wind on her ghostly pale skin. Suddenly, she said, raising her voice upon the speed's wind and sounding childishly hopeful:

'If you gave me money, and held me free, I could find and kill the woman for you, then go as I want, like this you'd be free of me and her, I would have my money, and we would both be contented.'

Hawkke seemed to be taken aback by her habile proposition and he said slowly, not really minding if she could hear him or not:

'What proves me that you won't fail? Or that you won't simply go away with my money?'

'Well, it is Assassination Honor Law,' she said, much more lightly, because she knew she was in her element, and she started to count on her finger, reciting: 'Kill the one gold ordered, or else die. Never betray gold, or else die. Two of the most important laws,' she added as a self-satisfied conclusion.

'Does everything is just gold to your eyes?' he asked bitterly.

'What else could it be? Nothing else could give me happiness save from gold,' she said, trying to turn to look at him.

'Have you never had a bit of love for anyone?' he asked keeping his handsome face out of her gaze.

'And what next?' she replied, with such a disdain of this feeling it startled him, 'What use would it be? It's not bringing gold, after all, just a bunch of troubles in your life and nothing else.'

'Tell me, young girl, if I was to give you gold, and ask you to kill your most close friend, would you do it?'

'I don't have any close friend. Too useless. But yes. Gold is gold and I'd do anything for gold,' she declared solemnly.

'Everything is just gold to your eyes,' he said again, disgustedly, and he pulled her harder against him, leaning his chest against her back, stuffing his sharp nose in the sweeping jet waves of her tenebrous hair. The hand he didn't used to ride the horse was locked tightly around her waist, and his subtle breath made her feel so strange and so nervous when she felt in on her temple, that she said:

'Keep me away from you, hunter, and stop breathing in my hair.'

'I like the scent of your hair,' he murmured, but suddenly, he cried: 'Look, kid, here are my domains, with the Predator's Lair, my castle, how do you like it?'

'It is beautiful,' she said in a low voice, and it surprised him.

The Predator's Lair _was_ beautiful. A tall, dark stone castle, with dozens of black birds flying and screaming over it, glorious dark gold and black standards flapping in the fresh wind, the sun breaking its lights against the hard stones. The castle was surrounded with little white and black wooden houses, and the great door was preceded by a stone-grounded court were a few peoples dressed all in glorious black and gold were chatting, working and busying themselves around the houses and the castle. When they had passed under the tall arch that made a whole in the stoned wall surrounding the Hunter's castle and arrived in the courtyard, the horse's hoofs clicking energetically on the stones, a cheer welcomed Hawkke, and when he jumped out of the steed, two young men immediately came to pull Arach gently on the floor and to take the beast to the stables. Hawkke grabbed the young girl's arms, and shouted:

'Crowe! Robeen! Get a room ready for the kid!'

'I am not a kid!' protested Arach, while the two young men ran out of the stables and disappearing in the castle.

Hawkke didn't answer, and followed his men in, taking Arach with him. Inside, it was darker, giving on a long, warm, crowded hall, with only lights the two fires at the end of the room and the dim clarity from the opened door. Gold and ebony chandeliers were scattered all over a long, dark wood table, were roasted meat, tall greenish bottles, ripe fresh fruits, fat white bread and cheese were standing, spreading their delicious odors all around the room. Girls, women, warriors, boys, all the population of Predator's Lair were obviously there, eating, arguing, laughing, while on the middle of the table the fool was making music, singing some stupid verses at which the young maidens were chuckling gaily.

Hawkke, taking Arach with him, went to sit at one of the benches, between two young men, that were drinking a great bottle of whine just for the two of them while talking animatedly.

'I see that you have taken advantage that I was far to achieve your great goal of the life,' said Hawkke, taking the bottle from the hand of the left man's hand, 'Ruin me by drinking all my whine, eh?'

'Sorry, our Master, t'was too good to resist,' said the man with the blond hair, a merry youth, gulping his glass all at once.

'Who's that you've got with ye, our Master?' asked the second one, a blue eyed Bird.

'Yeah, who's the lass?'

'A kid from StonePort,' said Hawk vaguely.

'I am not a kid!' cried Arach, pulling furiously at her ropes, then sending her elbow sharply in his arm, 'I am an ass—'

'Yes, a silly ass, you are,' said Hawkke, and shouted above all the noise from the Hall 'Robin, come here and take the kid to her chamber!'

The man called Robin, tall and slim, with sweet hazel brown hair and silvery grey eyes materialized from nowhere just behind Arach, who started, forgetting to protest that she was not a kid but an assassin, to turn her fury towards the young man. Hawkke limply helped Arach to pull herself upright, and Robin gallantly took her elbow, taking her out of the room, in a dark, richly hung with tapestries and bedecked with statues and high oaken furniture corridor, behind tall slender pillars of carven stone and up a beautiful wooden staircase. He led her through another, narrower, and bare corridor where two long lines of tall wooden doors gave upon the rooms of the guests, and finally he opened one of the doors at the far end, next to a tall, curtain-less, dirty-paneled window. Waving inside the room, he bowed, and said:

'Your room, my Lady.'

'I am not a Lady I am…' started Arach, but he gently pushed her in, and closed the door again, so she broke out, yelled: 'You cad!' at the door, and then was silent.

The room was not very large, but not so small altogether. It was furnished with a large oaken bed on which were a thick straw mattress and two bear-fur blankets, a little table with a marble basin on it and two high-backed chairs, and rugs on the cold stone floor, next to the bed and the fireplace, were a bright little fire was discreetly burning. Arach, still foaming with rage, suddenly noticed that both her hands were gloriously free, and rapturously, she stretched, like a feline, and threw herself on the bed. The pillows were white, clean and fresh-scenting, and the blankets smelled good, chasing away any harmful idea, so that she very nearly forgot she had to try to escape; her mind returned to her when she saw two slender, adorned swords that were hanging at the wall, obviously for decoration.

A long, satisfied smile stretching thin scarlet on her white face, her black eyes glittering black sparkles, Arach went to see the swords. They were sabers, light and beautiful, but they looked also very sharp, so she took one of them, and went to the door. Then she stopped. They were too much of those people outside, she would never be able to kill them all, she reflected, annoyed; on the off-chance, she went to look at the window. It was narrow but tall, with dark red curtains hanging at each side and trailing on the floor. Arach opened the glass panels, and looked tentatively outside. Only to discover that her room was too high for her to jump; however, there _was_ a narrow edge, and if she could stealthily slip all along it and reach the wall, then jump in a tree and reach the floor— Arach sighed and nearly toppled outside when she heard behind her:

'You have really no brain at all, kid, if you're thinking about escaping by the window.'

She turned abruptly, and clutched her saber so hard her knuckles nearly lost all color. Hawkke was looking at her with golden eyes full of irony, but also of amusement, even though he looked weary and drawn, leaning at the threshold.

'You don't come near or I slit your throat off, hunter,' said Arach savagely, drawing her weapon high, 'and stop calling me kid.'

'You look like a kid even more with this toy you're not allowed to play with, my sweet one,' he replied indolently, and casually, stepped in the room, locking the door behind him.

'Would you kill me as well if I'd told you I am willing to pay you to kill her.' he went on, smiling, sitting on the bed in an annoying landlordly way.

'You've changed, and I am not sure that I like it. And stop looking at me like that!' she cried savagely, stepping back nearer to the window, clutching the sword even tighter.

'Really? I have changed and I look at you in a way you don't like. Interesting,' he drawled, 'So, what say you about the proposition?'

'Show the gold before, I lower the saber after,' she said, spitefully.

He threw a fat, very big bag of gold at her face, and when she had looked at its content, ravenous, she smiled widely, and threw the sword on the floor.

'Ooh yeah! I'll take the job!'

'Ah, it's good. I won't have to run after you all the time then.'

She bent down to take the weapon again, and made toward the door, but he stopped her by saying nonchalantly:

'The door is locked and you needn't go.'

'One thing I want to tell you hunter, I am not staying here. That's your place, not mine. I am going back at StonePort to look for the woman. I don't even understand why you have taken me here.'

'I have taken you here, because I made my own inquest, kid, and I discovered that the woman had left StonePort two hours after talking to you, and that she was heading to the GreenLands. She's certainly one of my rivals, one of those filthy barons from the west, and I even made the necessary to make your business easier: I invited all the barons and lords of the GreenLands to a great celebration at the castle: you, the only thing you will have to do is to spot her, and kill her. Understood?'

'I do whatever I want,' she replied, frowning, feeling nervous to see him leaning so comfortably on this bed, locked with her in a bedroom in his own castle. She hugged the sword, and drew it higher, closer to her face in a defensive way.

'I am not so sure about it, kid.'

'Am not a kid!' yelled Arach, and the last string of any composure snapped; she threw herself on him, clutching her sword.

Swiftly moving away from her path, Hawkke ducked just before she had time to strike, and her blow as well as herself went to crush in the bed. He laughed out, took the saber away from her, reached for the other, and said, gracefully making to the door:

'Go and wash yourself, _kid_. There is water in the next room, as well as proper clothes. Make hast, _kid_, I am going to come back with some food for you. And don't try anything stupid, _kid_.'

'Curse you to the seven hells, I am not a kid!' screamed Arach, sitting up and ragingly throwing her hair away form her face; but he had already shut the door and went away in the corridor.

She remained on the bed for a few more moments, thinking about not going to wash and dress, just for the pleasure of disobeying him, but she indeed felt very dirty, and her tunic was starting to smell. Cursing like a witch from the Northern plains of the Pentagram, she went to the next room, a little room with a small window in which were standing a thick wooden tub full of steaming water and a chair on which were standing a little pack of dark clothes and a piece of dazzlingly white soap.

Arach sighed in a deeply fatalistic way, and sniffed in the perfumed air, then she shook away her coat, which she hadn't once taken off during the whole adventure, untied her old corset and her flimsy breeches, kicked her muddy boots off, and merely remaining with her oh-so-ancient tunic, she slipped her legs in the water. Warm water, it was warm water, so good she felt like dying. She ducked under the water, wetting her hair and splashing water all over the floor, and then reached for the soap, scrubbing her hair and her skin until the water was grey with her filth. Then she rinsed, stood up with the water streaming down her slight body, shook her head like a wet dog, and grabbed a soft towel that was lying on the floor to pull it tightly around her, after having shaken the dripping tunic away. She quickly rubbed herself dry, and then she thought about her tunic, that she wouldn't be able to wear. She was conscious that the pack of clothes on the chair was for her, but she didn't want to wear anything that the hunter owned, nor please his golden eyes by being dressed well, and the tunic was causing her a problem, irritating her already atrociously cut honour. Cursing, swearing, fuming, she ragingly grabbed a whole handful of streaming jet-stone black hair and pulled it off, trying to draw solutions from the pain.

'This is useless, stupid and unbelievable,' said a voice behind her.

She turned swiftly, quicksilver, grabbing the towel to her, and crossing both arms over her high chest, and nearly screamed with indignation and savage fury:

'Go away! How dare you…'

'Ah, finally caught you when you would rather I had not!' he exclaimed, looking highly pleased, stepping in the room.

She saw he was greatly amused to surprise her half naked, with her hair long and wild around her pale face, and she hissed like an angry serpent, miserable in the depths of herself.

'Why don't you put these on?' he asked, taking up then flinging her the pack of clothes.

'Don't want to wear something that's yours,' she spat furiously.

'Why? If it is really bothering you, you can pay it after,' he said amiably, while she hissed again, then he smiled and added:

'Don't worry, I am going away. Just dress and hurry up.'

She did hurry up, worried beyond herself by the fact that he was just behind the door, and that he could come back in every moment. She swiftly pulled on the tunic, then the stockings, the corset, petticoats, skirt and boots. Then she tossed her heavy, wet hair in her back and stormed away from the bathing-room.

'Those clothes were made for you, and they could even make you a bit lovely if you wore them properly,' said Hawkke when she stepped in the room.

The clothes were very beautiful indeed. The tunic was black velvet, with gossamer silk laces at the long, knuckle-reaching sleeves and a low neck, cut elegantly and loose, an obvious masterpiece from the well-known seamstresses of GreenLands; the corset was also of rare silk, black with small, graceful embroidered gold flowers and hooks, and the skirt was deep black, luxurious water-like velvets, making a gentle, discreet noise when she moved, and supplied with two or three black silk and lace petticoats that felt soft and gentle against her finely black-stocked and light leather-booted long legs. Hawkke stood up cheerfully from the bed where he had been lying, and strode toward her to arrange her. She stepped back:

'Hold your distances, hunter,' she snarled.

He said nothing, merely smiled his wolfish, roguish smile, and pulled her to him, arranging the neck of the tunic, his hands brushing over the pale skin of her throat, and she clenched her teeth till it hurt with difficultly compressed anger. Then he disposed the silken ties of her sleeves, the corset's hooks, and smoothed the skirts, and finally he stepped away, to look at her thoughtfully.

'How come your skin is so pale?' he asked, brushing his fingers over her throat.

She ducked sharply away, and replied:

'Don't like the sun.'

'Why don't you make something with your hair?' he went on.

'Stop talking like that and just tell me what the hell you are going to do with me.'

He grinned smugly and went to seat back on the bed, gesturing toward the little table where had appeared a bowl of soup, some tempting cheese and bread, with dry meat and fruits:

'Eat before, talk after.'

'M'not hungry,' she said, but sat down nevertheless.

The soup was warm and thick, some vegetable soup, and the meat was exquisitely salted. Arach ate quickly, discreetly, used to grab bits to eat instead of proper meals, and she had just started that she had already finished, pulling the empty bowl away from her, and turning toward Hawkke, who was smocking at his pipe, gazing thoughtfully at her.

'If you behaved more femininely, you'd be beautiful,' he said matter-of-factly.

'Tell one more thing about I-don't-know-what-I-must-do-to-be-beautiful or this kind of useless rubbish, and I stuff a punch in your suave face.'

'Aye, I believe you could do it. You've already done it after all,' he replied, and chuckled for himself.

'I'm tired of all this, hunter, so tell me what you intend me to do, so that I can finish my business and go away from your maddening person.'

'Night's fallen, now you sleep,' he answered her, wearily sitting up.

'What! Sleep? _Sleep_? You're mad, hunter? I just won't stay _sleeping_ with some work on my back.'

'Why, it's night!' he exclaimed, pulling his now-empty pipe on the floor.

'Course its night. More's the reason to go away and start my work,' she retorted, icily.

'You're mad, kid.'

'I am not a kid and I am not mad!'

'But you're lovely.'

She knew he was just saying that to make her angry, but she roared and threw herself on top of him, crushing both her hands on his chest, knocking him down on the bed. His adroitly grabbed her wrists, but she shook them away, and slapped him, furiously, conscious that she was hardly hurting him with her tiny skinny hands. He merely sniggered and snatched her hands, and pulled her away from him. She hissed, and tried to pull herself upright, but he very casually tipped her back, with a slight push of his hand in her firm chest, and while she has struggling with her hair and her fury, he slipped away from the room, still laughing.

**Author's Sympathetically Silly After-Note: Aha, things are progressing, aren't they? If you'd only knew the time I spent writing, rereading, correcting, embellishing this chapter: the result—humhum—being totally satisfying, I guess I deserve a rest. No, no I'm kidding. I am so hardworking I can't keep my hands away from my keyboard. My parents, needless to say, resent this deeply. They both hate keyboards. Which is ridiculous, you must admit—I mean, just REVIEW. **


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Extraordinarily Exited Note: Aha, here we go! This is where it all appears, and we finally get it! Oh, I am brilliant! Oh, I can't wait people to review, and tell me what they think about the intrigue. This is so exciting, I can't wait for people to send reviews. Ooh…I'm going to faint, I know I never could wait in my life—my blood just boiled and sparkles in my vein, making any waiting physically impossible, so please, do review…**

**Chapter Eight**

**The Silhouette of a Trap**

The following morning, Arach woke up at the sound of Hawkke's beautiful voice ordering roughly:

'Wake up, kid!'

Arach snapped sitting in her blankets and she mumbled, brushing her hair out of her eyes:

'I am not a kid, I'm an Alchematorian Apprentice and an Assassin…'

'Of course, of course, well, just hurry up,' he replied, pulling her by the arm out of the bed.

She shook him off her, while he said reproachfully:

'Look at your clothes, you stupid kid, all crumpled.'

'I don't like skirts,' she said, feeling more and more moody.

'Sorry, but you've got no choice, I girl is a girl, and girls wear skirts, and you are a girl.'

'Back at StonePort, I wore breeches like the men, and nobody said anything.'

'That was because there was always fog, so nobody could see you legs,' he said, frowning, turning her so that he could arrange her hair a little.

'That's a highly stupid thing to say. There wasn't any fog in the Alchematoria of Nariee, nor in the Dancing Tree, and nor in the Birds' tavern, and you know it,' she told him.

'Shut this sweet annoying mouth of yours,' he said, pulling a bronze hair pin in her massif black mane to keep away strands from her face.

'You don't talk to me like that!' she cried, 'And I want my clothes back.'

'You won't—'

'_Right now_!' she yelled, like a capricious child.

He turned her back to him, and slapped her across the face.

'Don't force me to hurt you,' he whispered, intently.

She pushed him away with both spidery hands, and said, smoothing her skirts:

'I ain't need you to look proper, hunter, so keep your hands away from me.'

He sighed, and threw:

'All right then, stop this nonsense and have your breakfast.'

'I've already eaten yesterday,' she said, tying the corset harder, and lifting the tunic higher over her throat.

He was looking at her piercingly, and he suddenly jumped to her, and said, seizing her arms:

'What was that on your breast?'

'What do you mean my breast! You churlish knave, you fat, cheeky pig, you filthy, disgusting cur—'

He grabbed the two sides of the tunic; and pulled them apart, as far as the corset could permit. She yelled, while he watched the thing he had seen at the top of her young, hard marble breast. It was what looked like a star, a black star with eight legs. Like a spider.

'Only Lords of GreenLands have got this kind of sign,' he said, looking up at her livid face.

Her eyes were shining so brightly, so hatefully he stepped back, and her lips seemed like a bleeding wound, ruby red in her face as pale as death.

'What is the matter?'

'Take your hands off me this second,' she said, slowly, lowly, with so much calm fury that he immediately released her.

'Else you let me go, else I kill everybody in this castle, including you and your guests,' she went on, still staring right at him, with her glittering, gleaming eyes burning his to the soul.

'Oh it was nothing, just a little peep, don't get in moods,' he said shakily, and then he suddenly retrieved his confidence, to her great anger and disappointment.

She hadn't been able to stop herself from shivering when his long, slender fingers had touch her skin, and the shiver was still present in her mind, and she hated herself even more than him for this shiver, for it was not of disgust, but of something else, she couldn't even brought herself to think about.

'Eat,' he added.

'I told you I have already eaten yesterday,' she snapped, pulling her clothes back to place.

'Today is another day, if this isn't too much for you to understand, stupid kid.'

When they finally left the chamber, Arach following Hawkke in the dark corridor already filled with busy people, it was a furious looking girl that appeared, and a greatly amused hunter. Her hair was now long and silky in her back, a bronze pin adding elegant wilderness to it, and her clothes were suiting her very well. The men, and also the women and young girl, turned their head at her passage, for they all thought she was the Master's new mistress, and they all were eager to see what she looked like. Mostly thought she wasn't so very well chosen, yet a few could nevertheless catch a glimpse of her hidden beauty.

The great Hall was already bursting with people. At the tables, some children were eating like starved dogs, while young girls were preparing the food for the great feast that was coming, peeling and washing huge mountain of vegetables, laughing and gossiping with each others, while the men were preparing to go hunting, or heading to the smith, butcher, builders, to their work, to their usual life, all looking merry and happy, all chatting and laughing, all beautiful in their gold and black. It irritated Arach to see just happiness and lightness, she longed for the sad mists of StonePort, longed to kick some miserable, measly dirty beggars in the roads, longed to be able to snap insults at someone, longed to kill, to sneak, to feel money in her pockets, longed to be dressed like a man, and longed to be back at the Alchematoria. Her face was dark with fury and irritation, and if she could have, she would stick a dagger right in Hawkke's chest, and kill everybody in the hall, and finally be killed, because as every assassin, she was curious and avid of death, murder, blood and doom.

'Here, kid, let me introduce you to someone.'

Hawkke's voice snapped in her morbid daydreams, and she focused her eyes on the man he was talking to.

'Lord Drymarchon, meet Arach. Arach, here is Lord Drymarchon, master of the very well-known famous castle Serpent Stone, friend and relative of the Spider's Web's master.'

He grinned as he saw the colors drain from her already pale face, and her eyes flicker with a tiny fire of anguish.

'Well met, Lord, I'm pleased to meet you, I am…'

She bit her lips to blood, trying to take hold on herself; _they mustn't know_.

'Arach, you said? Well, Lady, f I was to give you a name, I would call you Black Widow. You look more like a black widow than a young girl.'

Drymarchon was indeed very handsome. Snake like, tall, slim, with an olive skin, pale silvery blond hair, he was standing gracefully balanced, with a chilling smile at the edge of his mouth. His voice was cold, but low, and sounded sneaky, and the glittering green eyes he was lowering to her made her shiver. As soon as she would be able, she would fly from this damned Manor, and try to kill its owner, this Hawkke that had brought her in the same place as this cursed man.

Arach was just a hasty, childish short for the noble name Black Widow Arachna. The girl was born in the manor of Spider's Web, the daughter of the immensely powerful Lord Araneus and graceful Lady Micrathena. She had grown in the magnificence of a majestic castle, in the company of Ladies and Lords that bowed to her like slaves, brought up by the splendidly beautiful governess Seashell, and the terrible preceptor Snakehiss. Her favorite was certainly the dark, aggressive preceptor, and spending all her time in his poisonous company, she had grown up savage, rebellious and ugly. One day, she spat at the face of Spider Web's neighbor, Whitedeer, and it had caused so much troubles in the lands that her father, possessed by the famous fury of the Spiders, had pitilessly dragged her in the middle of the courtyard, called everybody, Lords and Ladies of the highest ranks, Barons and Baronesses, Dukes and duchesses, servants and cooks, alike; and he had beaten her with a long wood stick, leaving on the white skin naked by the ripped dress long, painful red marks. And she had slipped away from him, grabbed his stick away from it, coldly snapped it in two, thrown it in her father's face, and nimbly leapt on a horse that had just come in the courtyard, after having unceremoniously pushed it rider on the floor. So she had fled, and the only man she had ever regretted was the beloved Snakehiss, to whom she had given her last smile before she fled, sending a loving glance to him as he smiled, leaning against the arcade of a window, in his tower. She had also abandoned him her poor heart. She had fled to StonePort, and had lived for four years there; entering at the Alchematoria, where she had been agreed even thought no woman was allowed to, because of her incredible abilities to master chemical powers. And she had become an assassin. Meanwhile, what she didn't know was that her parents were having many troubles. They were growing old, and she was their only heir, and they had lost her, to their bitterness and sorrow, for they indeed had loved her beyond anything she could have expected. But there was also a faraway cousin who had entered the matter. He had decided that if he married Arachna, and brought her back to her parents as his bride, he would inherit the immensely colossal fortune of the Spiders, and become Lord of two of the most powerful Houses of the GreenLands, Spiders and Snakes; so he had send for one of his many friends, a handsome, habile Lord-Hunter named Hawkke. And together, uniting their cleverness together, they had built a plan.

'What is the matter, Arach, do you feel sick?' asked Hawkke, smiling down at her ghastly face.

She was enraged. She knew she was being tricked, and could do nothing about it, and her face was so pale Hawkke almost feared she would become a ghost, or just vanish, like that, because there was no more color left for her body. But her eyes were gleaming and her mouth twisting as she forced a smile, that she wanted elegant and nonchalant, but appeared cold, and horribly calculating.

'Of course I am not sick,' she said, and turning with a canine smile, 'So, Lord Drymarchon; you are one of Lord Araneus's relative, as I understand,'

Quick, astonishing, the way she recovered at once from her wounds. Again she was this cold, clever, calculating, nonchalant assassin, and both the men were stunned by her skills.

'I am, Black Maiden, but alas, he is not in state to acknowledge me,' Drymarchon replied, as quick as her to catch the thread.

'I can understand it. After all, a daughter like this…Who would be happy to have been treated in such a way?'

'You know about Black Widow? Black Widow Arachna?'

'Of course, I met her once, and you remind me of her when you said that you would have certainly have called me Black Widow. She once told me that I looked like her and that if I wanted, I could go back to her Castle, pretend I am her, and inherit from her parents. Little did she know me.'

That left them stunned a second time. Both had expected a lie, false ignorance, but no, she was talking about this like that, simply, like she would have talk about anybody else in the world, handling words and events in hands lethal as poisonous spiders, and threading her net with dexterity. If Hawkke hadn't seen the spider on her throat he would have hesitated to do the next part of the plan, but this girl was without mistake the Black Widow Arachna. He thought about that. Widow from the moment she was born, she would be widow all her life. Or would she? She wasn't Black Widow for him. She was simply Arach, a tiny, heedless assassin that had tried to kill him and got tricked, and to whom he was slowly, unconsciously and grudgingly growing fond of.

'So, you have met this poor Black Widow, eh?' went on Drymarchon, playing the game.

'I have. And she possessed things I had not.'

She said this with emphasis, looking at the green eyed Lord with piercing eyes. And her fiery look seemed to break against the polished emerald of his look, and a strange battle, to which Hawkke was assisting with great curiosity, engaged. The girl and the Lord, face to face, were talking in a tight conversation, and their word seemed like arrows they were throwing at each other. Finally, Hawkke muttered about going to do something, and discreetly took leave of them.

**Author's Over-Anxious After-Note: Aha! So! I bet you never saw it come! Clever, innit! Superb! Grand, Magnificent! I am so self-proud! Ooh, I feel I am going to drink a whole bottle of coke! C'mon guys, review, please, and review, and tell what you thought about THAT!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Infuriating Note: Here you go. The next chapter, with the appearance of a character we already got a glimpse of at the beginning! Bet you never guessed she would come back, did you? No you didn't I know you didn't. I was too much of a genius, wasn't I? Wasn't I? Anyway, REVIEW!**

**Chapter Nine**

**Lady Frostrosé**

When Arach at last got rid of the sly young Lord, her first will was to go and find Hawkke, and strangle him. But then she thought she would perhaps be more clever if she fled from the hopeless passage she had found, this reckless idea of walking over the wall, go down by a tree and fly as she could. She slipped away from the hall, and slid all her way down the corridor, walking fast and silent like a shadow, next to the wall. She had nearly reached the door when a strong, incredibly powerful hand caught hold of her arm.

Hissing and spitting like an angry cat, Arach tried to free herself, but the man was strong. She finally turned. He was every tall, kind looking, with pale brown eyes and hair, a kind, almost reverent smile toward this furious little kid. He was dressed in brown, with a deep green cloak and hood, and his hands were gloved. She said:

'What do you want? Let me _go,_ you brute!'

'Hush, calm down, m'Lady, 'tis the master that wishes to see you.'

'I am not a bloody damned Lady!' yelled Arach, struggling with all the power of her body, 'I am an assassin and an Alchem—what the bloody hell does he want!'

'He wants thee to meet his guests, fair Lady—'

'Stop calling me a Lady or I'll stick a knife in you stomach and dig maggot holes!' she shouted.

It wouldn't have been easy for her to do so, as he was holding her arm firmly, and he was very strong and massif, but, the poor girl, after all…He dragged her down the corridor, in the Hall, in a corner behind a tall pillar, against which Hawkke was carelessly leaning.

She couldn't believe her eyes. All the time he had leaved her with Drymarchon to their poisonous conversation, he had gone to dress up, and the effect was totally astonishing. He was wearing a rich, deep black velvet shirt over black silk breeches, with black boots of costly, elastic leather, and his hair was combed, even if untied, and his face clean and shaven, pale and slim, fine as the finest ivory carving. He was also wearing a long, very beautiful cloak, tied at his shoulder with a golden brooch with a flying hawk as an emblem. His hands, she noticed, were gloved with silk, and his eyes, golden like the brooch, but more noble, and glittering, were shining very brightly like fires.

When he saw her, he straightened and languidly pulled away from the pillar, then said in wearily commending tones:

'You can leave now, Blackwing, I think you've fought well enough with a wild cat for today. Go and enjoy yourself, for tomorrow we shall have work.'

'Yes, my Lord,' said Blackwing, then he bowed before Arach, who held her tongue, and withdrew.

'You are again in a mess, I can see,' he said, turning back toward her, and starting to rearrange her clothes, as she so much hated he to do.

It wasn't because he was very handsome and well dressed that she had forgotten her project to slit his throat off or strangle him, so she glared at him, while his gloved hands brushed all over her body, her raven hair, her milky face, her shuddering throat, her beating chest, her hips, her skirts…Tying, smoothing, pulling, arranging. When he was finished, he straightened, flicked a strand away from his attractive face and said:

'Here you are. You don't want appear like a hag, do you?'

'Yes I do,' she said sulkily.

'No you don't,' he said, and very quickly, he bent to her, but then seemed to thought better of it and he pulled upright, and with a little glance at her pale thunderous face:

'Ah, behold our first guests.'

And as if handling a mere rag doll, he dragged her to the wide opened doors of the hall, were had appeared three peoples entering the room, with the warm light of the day and the singing of the birds in the trees of the courtyard. One was a tall, dark bearded man, who bowed and kissed Arach's hand with an innate gallantry, then a woman, dark faced, but fair haired, who languidly curtsied and smiled with a kind of eagle-like grace, than a young girl, of the same age as Arach, looking at the same time older in body, yet her clothes were pale pink, and her blond hair was tied in a long plait and she often fluttered her golden eyelashes over her crystalline blue eyes, which inevitably brought upon her Arach's disdainful lofty glare.

'The Lord and Lady Nightflight, and their daughter, the very fair little Lady Butterfly,' said Hawkke, smiling with a predator's grace to his guests, elegantly bowing and kissing hands 'My friends, met the young Arach.'

'Your mistress?' asked kindly Lord Batwings, surveying her with heavy, fatherly grey eyes.

Arach blushed furiously, the dark fuchsia spreading high upon her pale cheeks to her greatest irritation and chagrin, and Hawkke laughed in his golden way:

'Nay, she is mere but…a…friend.'

'I am most certainly _not_! I am an assass…'

He squeezed her arm so tightly she cried out, but his shining gaze told her to shut up more than his very move, so she did it, and shut her crimson mouth furiously, grudgingly, swallowing her words and her cantankerous face darkened even more.

After they had chat briefly with their host, Batwings and his elegant wife went away to talk to watchful Drymarchon, who had been himself talking with a hunter next to a pillar, and Hawkke started to talk to he simpering Butterfly, who irritated Arach so much that she started to growl like a caged beast, so furiously that Hawkke had to get rid of the young girl, so loud and anguishing was this little savage of an assassin's behaving.

'So, you are jealous of another girl, now,' he said, turning to her and smiling his prettily amused smile.

'One day, I'll break your neck,' she said, and added, 'like a twig,' thinking that it wasn't so bad after all, and she could perhaps try and kill him more painfully, so that he would regret all he had made her endure. Delighted with this new way of diverting herself, she started to think about what she could do to him, from strangling him with his own standard to drowning him in a bucket of water full of soap and dirt. This last thought brought a brilliant smile to her red lips, which Hawkke caught with surprise, as he said.

'I don't think you really want to kill me…Ah, Lord Thornsilver and his three sons: Mint, Leaffe and Bramblesong, I am so pleased to see you, my friends,' he said, as four men entered the room, walking quick, and followed by a little page boy who was holding the older man's cloak in both his arms, staggering after him, unable to quite keep the rhythm and somewhat spoiling the elegance.

They were all four very tall and handsome, all brown haired and blue eyed, all deliciously gallant, and they all kissed Arach's hand, leaving their lips caress her skin even as she glared at them with all the fury from her narrow black eyes.

'You have got rid of Frostrosé, eh, Hawkke?' asked the older of the sons, Bramble, smiling convincingly at Arach, looking pleased and good hearted.

'No, actually…'

'Who's the Frosty-thing?' asked poisonously Arach, turning slightly toward the hunter, shooting thunderbolts in his face.

'You didn't tell her the name of your last mistress?' asked the Lord, whose laughers boomed across the room, making several girl and men raise their head.

'I am not his damned bloody mistress!' half-screamed Arach, clenching her white fists at her side, and gritting her sharp teeth.

'Ah, she's got fire and fury, she is delicious!' said the man, and again, the guests scattered, the Lord and Leaffe to go to talk to the little group formed by the Nightflight and Drymarchon, Bramblesong with the young Butterfly, and Mint left to talk to Hawkke and Arach, who he obviously found fascinating. At last, tired of her glares and the sulky monosyllables answers, the young man went away to talk to Lady Nightflight, replaced by his brother, Leaffe.

Guest arrived and arrived, until the Hall was nearly full to burst, and the loud sound of the chatting and laughing and gossiping was humming in the entire castle. The vegetable-handling girls had gone away and disappeared in the kitchens, and a delicious smell of roasted meat and boiled vegetables and fried onions was ruling in the crowded air, slipping their perfume in each corner and staircases. Hawkke was talking and acting very gracefully, dragging Arach behind him, and she was fuming, because everybody seemed to have arrived, and she could not see the woman that had employed her for the hunter's assassination what seemed so long ago at StonePort. It was enraging her because it was the only thing for which the hunter kept her in his castle and if she couldn't find her here, she really would have nothing more to do, and idleness was certainly her worst enemy. After Hawkke, of course. And Lord Drymarchon. And all the guests in this room, those tall and beautiful lords and ladies. But finally, her forced patience was rewarded.

She came alone, dressed in a silken gown composed with a smooth dark pink bodice, and long trailing pale skirts, with her long blond hair tied in a braid mixed with coils of blue and gold ribbons, and her eyes, so blue, so deeply beautiful, were smiling. She gracefully went toward her host; and smiled, and gave him her lovely hand, which he kissed with more feelings than he could have shown, and usually showed.

'Arach, meet the very fair lady Frostrosé,' he said, turning to the assassin.

'She's the one that's your _mistress_, then,' said Arach in a crude way, sounding profoundly disgusted and accusing.

'We surely are more than friends, Lady Arach,' said gently Frostrosé.

'I am _not_ a Lady, I a—'

'Ladies, allow me to retire. The domains of femininity are far too unknown to me to accept my joining your delicate conversations. '

Hawkke withdrew, after he had glanced at Frostrosé, a gleaming glance, he placed on her heart and her lips. The blond woman sighed a luxurious sigh, and smiled her lovely pink smile, with her hands caressing the silk sleeves of her elegant dress.

'I didn't know he could just love someone,' said Arach finally, looking after Hawkke, and ceasing to torture the little piece of silk from her own sleeve she had not stopped scratching and breaking all this time.

'Yes. It was a surprise for me too. But do not feel too jealous.'

'I ain't feeling bloody damned jealous!'

'Oh, yes you are. Everyone is. Such a handsome man, so…It would really astonish me that you don't love him.'

'I _detest_ him.'

'I suppose you do.'

The stayed silence for a moment, than Arach said:

'If he loves you so much, why did you want to kill him then?'

'Ah, I expected you would talk about that.'

'Of course, we _must_ talk about _that_! It is because of _that_ that I am here, prisoner in a chamber in his castle, looking ridiculous in those doll dresses!'

'Yes. But let me first tell you, Assassin, that you certainly do not look like a doll. Your beauty is quite savage, and Hawkke made a piece of art by giving you these garments that make you look even darker and mysteriously attractive. You see, when I saw you in a road, I thought you were totally the kind of person to whom nobody can help to be fond of. And I also saw in your tenebrous eyes so much hate and darkness that I told myself that your heart is empty from love. And I am right. Tell me, assassin, if I give you the double of the money I once proposed you to kill my lover, would you try again and kill him?'

A plan, a superb plan suddenly took shape in Arach's head. She could poison both the hunter and his mistress, demanding each reward at one another for both their murder before their respective death, get her freedom and the two rewards. It would bring her lot of money, and revenge; it was definitely a good plan. And she had everything she needed to do that; the crowded castle, the drinks, the sleeping powder in a pocket in the fold of her velvet skirts, and some weapon not far from her hand. If she had chance, she would even find them in both their bed, poison them with Breathing Poising powder, and...

'Ooh yeah,' she said, the thrill at the idea of murder, poison, money and flight flushing crimson her lips and cheeks, and sparkling in the jet depths of her eyes.

When night fell glorious starry azure outside and that it was time for the long-awaited dinner, Arach slipped in the crowd, and jumped on the place beside Hawkke, in front of the middle of the three long wooden tables which were staggering under the delicious hoards of carefully prepared, richly perfumed meals. He smiled at her, and she just frowned and held her sharp pointed tongue, and with this, the dinner began. The food was excellent, the moral high, everybody seemed to enjoy themselves, and they all ate and drank with great appetite, the men chewing the meat with their powerful jaws and drinking great glasses of wine, the women eating with manners, speaking softly, and stopping every second to wipe their fingers and lips on their pink and white handkerchiefs. Arach, while everybody was chatting and laughing around her, was collapsed on the table, half sleeping, looking around her with narrow eyes and yawning with boredom. She was nearly completely sleeping when she heard Hawkke's voice at her ear, and felt his hand on her arm, so she jerked upright and yawned hard.

'Have a drink with me, my kid,' he said, pouring wine in two glasses, 'I feel lonely, my mistress has a new lover, and my guests are busy with each others; you, with your sharp tong and all your hidden weapons and your pale creamy flesh, you're the only one that's left to me.'

'Don't get stupid ideas, hunter,' she said, but her snappy tone was a bit spoiled by another languishing yawn.

At that moment, a kind of incident burst at the other side of the table, involving the buffoon and a page boy, and the time Hawkke bent over the table, to turn his head away and look, Arach slipped discreetly the white sleeping powder she had kept in her sleeve all the time in his glass, then wiped her hands on her neighbor's handkerchief, took her own glass, and the time he had turned back, already bored with the event, she was sipping with an air of sweet weariness that she hoped would fool him. They both drank, and Arach pulled her half full goblet back on the thick table, for she was not very found of wine anyway, and she found it harsh and disagreeable.

The evening went on rather peacefully, with for only troubles the drunken guests or the sordid fights of the little page boys and the buffoon going on, and the time for night retirement came. The guests slowly retreated to the rooms that had been prepared for them, saluting each other and coming to kiss Arach's hand goodnight, the women discreetly curtseying a goodnight and disappearing behind their husbands or fathers in an overly modest way. And finally even Hawkke went to sleep, not even addressing the collapsed girl on the table, stumbling like a drunk out of the hall, leaving the empty room and Arach dozing on the dirty table behind him.

When she finally realized that everybody had gone sleeping, Arach told herself that she could do nothing else but sleep, because she felt very tired and dazed, and she would be able to make her murder another time, later maybe. She stumbled to her room like the hunter had, opened the door and went in and then closing it with the keys, which she threw on the little table near her bed. Sleepily, she pulled away her skirts, corset and boots, throwing them on the floor, staying just the black chemise that was falling to her knees, leaving her long, white slim legs bare apart from the slipped black stockings, and went to collapse on the bed, and jumped away from it immediately when she saw that Hawkke was thrown all over her pillows, and that he was not sleeping, even if he looked very crushed down.

'What are you doing here?' she asked in one breath, not even thinking of straightening her thighs or lowering her shirt, looking foolishly at him through her black strands.

'Sorry, but I gave my bedrooms to some guests, and yours is the only bed I could find available for my tired body. I couldn't even go in my fair Lady's one.'

'Who said it was available!'

'Me…Remember I'm the master here…'

He yawned and turned his back to her. He was just dressed with his breeches and boots, with his hair wild and uncombed, and his naked back sleek with taut, alluring muscles. She threw herself on him, turning him on his back with the little force she could muster, and shot him a cuff in his exquisite face. He grunted and sat up, and they started to fight, childishly, limply, because both had been drugged by the other. Finally Hawkke collapsed on his stomach, and Arach collapsed on his back, her chest pressed to him, so that he could feel her hard young breasts against his naked back, and her hair tickling him like little feathers in his neck. They both fell asleep heavily, together on that bed, not even conscious enough to insult each other.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Obstinately Odious Note: hi there, everyone! Sorry I didn't write any Atrocious After-note for my ninth chapter, but I was very busy, and I didn't have time. In fact, I was engaged in a desperately dangerous quest to find the Eye of Amethyst, which is the preciousest—I mean, the most precious (you know what: I never quite understood why on earth must we put sometimes most, and sometimes est. Do you imagine how quicker the world would turn if all the adjectives could be est-ed? Hm? I bet you never even thought about it—you should a #shamed of yourself :_contemptcontempt_:)**

**Never mind. Just read and Review, which is the point—if I didn't need someone to review, I wouldn't put this text here. Be logic, _que diable_!**

**Chapter Ten**

**Lord Drymarchon**

Arach woke up a few hours later, with the moonlights spreading dim silvery-blue on the bed, and an awful headache. Hawkke, under her, was snoring, and she vaguely felt as if she wanted to punch him, but his naked back was so warm and soft, and she was so cold and felt hurting everywhere. She grunted, and pulled herself away from him, without even opening her eyes, for the moonlight was hurting her already seriously damaged head, and she groped around to find a fur. He groaned, and turning on his side, facing her, still sleeping; he slurred:

'Don't leave me, kid, I am cold…Don't be cruel and come to warm me up with the sweet white body you unfortunately possess…'

She grunted again, curled under a fur she had finally found and drawn up, and utterly ignoring him, she started to fall asleep again. She had nearly crossed the line of consciousness when she felt both his strong arms reach for her thin waist, and grab her possessively, pulling her hard against his naked, warm chest. She sighed, sat, and started to tug the fur around him, then she slipped in again, snuggling against his hard body, and falling asleep in his arms, with her hair spread like a raven fan behind her head, on his arm; and feeling exceptionally good.

When as outside the sun rose with its army of glorious colors, the tall, fair silhouette of Frostrosé in her nightdress appeared at the doorway of the chamber; they were still both fast asleep, still curled together. The lady shook her head, smiling a rueful smile, looking at the two of them with her blue eyes; the girl breathing softly, her hair all wild and spilled over his arm and the pillows, her face against his naked chest, the hunter with his noose in this hair, one arm under her head, one hand under her cheek, slightly snoring, looking very angelical, no more snappy and ironic, but like a child in the arms of his mother, even if it more looked as if the assassin was the child and him the parent. Frostrosé sighed, still smiling, and disappeared, locking the room again with the keys she had always possessed.

Arach started to wake up slowly, feeling far too comfortable and warm to wake up at all. She jerked her arms in the air, stretching her aching muscles, and by the way punched the sleeping man at her side. He muttered incoherent words she didn't want to understand and tried to grab her back in the embrace of his arms, but she limply rolled away, feeling as if she was going out of some comfortable, very warm water into the cold of the morning. It seemed that her departure made him come back from his drunken unconsciousness, and he sat up, yawning, opening his golden eyes widely and blinking like an owl in the sunny light.

'Argh, kid, I feel like a received a bag of potatoes right in the face,' he grumbled, looking at her hair and her pale face as she stood immobile, looking dreamily at the window, face turned to the light and narrow eyes sparkling.

''Tis no wonder after all that wine you drank last night,' she said groggily, turning to glare at him.

''Twasn't my fault, kid, I just felt sad.'

'Oh, yes, of course, now that the fair lady Frosty has dropped you for another man!' she said sarcastically, but yawning and feeling like nestling in his arms and go back to sleep forever.

'Yeah, it's true; she has dropped me. And I am a hunter. I should probably kill her…'

'Don't waste your time on killing disloyal mistresses. You'd better make something useful, like…washing and dressing yourself?'

'I don't feel like it,' he said, sounding suddenly moody, 'were Frostrosé here, she would light a fire, and pull blankets over me, and warm me up with her body. You haven't got what she has, but if you gave me a piece of what I can catch a glimpse of under your clothes, it would content me, _really_…'

'Who do you think I am! I am not your bloody mistress, hunter, so keep away from my bed and leave me and what is under my clothes alone!' she cried, turning her head and glaring at him again.

He stubbornly said nothing, but gathered himself on his knees, and threw himself on top of her, pinning her down on the bed. He stuffed his arms in her long, fan-spread hair, grabbed her head between both his hands, and half lifting, half bending over her, he crushed his demanding lips over hers, totally awaken now, kissing her so hard, so angrily, with so much passion that she was left breathless, immobile under him, her eyes full of tears his savage desire had drawn, feeling at the same time good and anguished to be so totally at his mercy. He breathed deeply, and bent again over her, but she drew her fingers, cold, slim fingers, on his lips, and said in a low, soft whisper.

'You shan't do that again. Bog off, hunter.'

He sighed, and looked at her with so much genuine need and desire, all fury gone, that she very nearly kissed him for the mere sake of his will; but she tore herself away from under him, and quickly dressed up. Then she quickly stumbled out of the room, without even looking back behind her, and headed towards the courtyard, with the firm will to go away, leave him and his mistress to their world, and plunge back into the mist of StonePort, go away from him and his murder, go away from the strong, weakening feeling of his mouth upon hers. She wanted to weep, but instead she stuck her shin in the air, and tossed back her jet black mane, ignoring the strange, tickling, warm, nearly disagreeable sensation of the sun playing on her white skin. She crossed the silent courtyard, and arrived at the great gates, at the bottom of which was dozing a guard, drunken and sleeping, snoring like a fat pig. She bit her lips, and was asking herself what to do _now_, when she heard a voice, so soft, so half-regretful, half-regretless, behind her.

'So, instead of killing him, you have ended by becoming his mistress. I knew it would happen.'

Arach turned sharply on her heels and glared at Frostrosé, standing tall and fair in front of her, her hair falling in shining loose curls of pale gold around her pink draped shoulders. She was talking gently, not reproaching, just observing something she had noticed.

'I ain't his bloody mistress!' yelled Arach, furious and ready to snatch the spear away from the still sleeping guard and stuff it in the woman's stomach.

'I am not so sure about it,' replied peacefully Frostrosé.

'You talk about things you don't know about, you pig-pink bitch!' screamed Arach hysterically.

'He desires you. In his eyes, in his hands, in his voice, in his heart, I can see it. He wants you so much he couldn't even get himself to go in his own wide cold bed yesterday. Tell me I am lying, tell me, assassin, so that I can laugh.'

Arach, with a hiss as sharp as the movement she followed with, slapped the lady across the face, than she thoughtlessly scrambled up the wall, and jumped over it, crashing down on the floor at the other side of the wall. Sobbing, tears streaming down her face with anger and a sorrow she could not understand, she ran away from the castle, her long legs barely supporting her, but making her run fast in the thick, high green grass on the rich fields of GreenLands. She ran for a long time, and her desperate tears and sobs presently stopped, and she altogether stopped thinking as well, just concentrating her energy on running, running away from the hunter and his castle, from the late mistress, from everything that tried to make her feel. She wanted to be back in the Alchematoria, or prisoner of the pirates, anything, anything, but not there, away from GreenLands, away from this cursed land where she would leave the little piece of heart she had left.

She ran for so long that when her she collapsed on the floor, she couldn't even feel her legs, so aching they were, and she was so exhausted she early fell asleep here and there. She had barely eaten anything the day before, and her stomach ached nearly as much as her legs and the rest of her body, which still didn't ache as much as her heart. She calmed down her thundering breath, and stood up, and started to run again. She was still in the horizon-less fields when she felt herself being drawn right from the floor, and was pulled over a galloping horse, between two slim, strong young arms. She felt a cold, long-fingered hand covering her mouth, but she didn't even try to scream. She wanted to know to whom the arms belonged.

'You see, Arachna, I certainly didn't want to see you; but I need your handsome heritage and your glorious name. So, you are going to marry me, and then, we shall patiently wait for your father to eventually die—meanwhile, I shall teach you obedience, humility and respect for your superiors. You see, I do play with peoples; and I was playing with you from the moment you first talked to Lady Frostrosé, till now. Both the hunter and his mistress have received their reward for trapping you in my arms, and now that I got hold of you, I shall not release you. Does the ingenuity of my plan reach your mind, tiny one?'

Drymarchon's cold, exhilarated voice stopped as he gasped in his breath, and then went on:

'It was easy: you were avid of money, oh so avid, exactly because of your family's fortune; and you were an assassin. This dear Lady Frostrosé wanted her lover killed, she had money to give you—enough to allure you—then the hunter was told, and he spoiled your pretty childish assassination. Then he took you to his castle—or should I say dragged you— and there I was supposed to make you loose your head and flee, but you didn't, clever girl, oh no you didn't, so we changed our plan. Frostrosé was supposed to find any stratagem to make you go away, and she succeeded. You have run away, right in my arms.'

He brushed his face against her cheek, and he was slightly surprised that she hadn't replied. Arach, drawn into her own self, was thinking that she would use the same dagger to kill Drymarchon, Frostrosé, and Hawkee.

**Author's Aesthetically Perfect After-Note: (I won't say hello or hi or goodbye; from now on, I shall always say: what do you want? Just to warn you. I am definitely finished with politeness.)**

**Anyway: how did you like that? It was very well done, and I deeply congratulate myself. I m just quivering when I think about the dramatic events that are going to happen in the next chapter—aha, and I'll make you wait until you dribbled and your eyes are crossed with the impossibility of the suspense—ooh I'm _so_ evil! Never mind—just review, and do it, or else.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Horrendously Intriguing Note: What do you want? Why are you reading this :barkbark:You should be helping your mother with the washing up! You should be wiping the floor! You should—(well, here we go: meet Trice Octari, my…let's said…aggressive personality. She's just come out form jail for biting a postman under the pretext that he never helped his mother when he was young, but don't worry, she won't harm you.)**

**Never mind. This is the next and heartbreakingly short chapter that continues with the story, nothing much happens in it, sorry; it was a kind of pause. I hope now you all hate Hawkke. I don't personally, but you ought to hate him. Anyway, Arach's not for him. Aha, yes. That's pushing, innit?**

**Chapter Eleven**

**Araneus**

Arach kept silent and immobile all the time they crossed the green fields, the wind in her pale face, dark thoughts behind her closed eyelids. She could feel all too well Drymarchon's long arms wrapped around her waist, or his cold breath against her temple, or his nose in her hair, and needed a strong will not to stick her elbow in his stomach, push him away from his horse and go back to the port. No, she would let herself ride to his castle, the mighty fortress Serpent Stone, and find a way to kill Drymarchon, then she would hunt down Frostrosé, kill her too, and then kill Hawkke. She would enjoy to feel her dagger's blade enter his heart, enjoy the feeling of his blood on her hands, enjoy her vengeance.

'See, Arachna, the beauty and mightiness of my fortress!' he told her, speaking close to her hair, so that without raising his voice, she could hear him in spite of the winds howls over them, 'See how tall and graceful and powerful it stands! Feet for a snake!'

Arach said nothing, but the fortress was indeed utterly magnificent. Tall against the fresh cerulean sky, build with grey stones and green-gold bronze, slim, majestic, with the long, flapping standards, green and gold, with a long, forked-tongued serpent with glittering emerald eyes. The castle was circled with a deep ditch, at the bottom of which sharp blades were pointing towards the sky. A heavy wooden bridge was lowered over it whenever someone wanted to come, the moment it wasn't any enemy, and at a cry from their master, two guards perched over the wall lowered it. The horse crossed it, its hoofs thundering against the stone floor as they reach the courtyard, the bridge closing behind them like a door. Arach realized it wouldn't be easy to go away, but she told herself not to despair, and that she would find a way. All the peoples in the courtyard, all tall and slim, were dressed in green, with bronze and emerald brooches, all with long dark brown-blond hair, all looking busy and preoccupied. The men were dressed with leather armors and gloves, the women with simple green or brown velvet gowns. Children poorly dressed were running all around the place, crying and laughing and playing silly stupid games.

Drymarchon jumped from his horse, and walked away, shouting without turning:

'Get the girl off the horse, Anack, and take her to my bedchamber. Don't forget to close the door, or else she'll go away.'

'Yay master, as you wish, master,' said Anaconda, a tall, strong, slimy young warrior, pulling Arach off the horse, and gently on her feet.

He took her arms and led her in the castle, were everything was bronze and green, up a flight of stairs and another and another, until they had reached the top chamber, the master's chamber at the top of the highest donjon.

It was a large room, with bear rugs on the floor, and a huge bed in the middle, hanged with green curtains, like those at the two tall windows. A long table in a corner was charged with parchments and little boxes and bags, and the chair next to it was also ornate with a green piece of cloth. All the room gave an impression of grandness, but also danger, and uneasiness. The warrior led her in, with a sickening smile on his face, then he backed away, closed the door behind him, and she heard the key turning in the lock.

Arach stood a few moments without doing anything, not even thinking. Then she shook herself, and went straight to the table, and started to fumble through the things, looking for anything sharp, that she could stick in the Lord's guts. She searched, and found nothing, so she started to look in her own secret pocket. There were two little bottles left, one love drug (he certainly didn't need one) and one sleeping drug. Well she could at least make him sleep so that she could strangle him in peace. The trouble was, how to use the poison. It was the kind of little liquid that you had to slip in a glass or a plate, not just fling at someone, and she got so angered by finding nothing that she didn't hear a noise of foots behind the door. It opened, and she started, but it was just a little maid, who came with some food on a tray, pulled it on a floor, then bowed and left. Arach didn't touch the food, even though she was nearly shivering with hunger, and she started to pace up and down the room, with the powerful desire to smash something. The glasses were useless, as the window was leading right in the air, and she finally thought of nothing better than to curl in a corner and sleep.

While Arach was pacing up and down his chamber like a tiger in a cage, Drymarchon was riding at hell speed out of his fortress. He went far in the west, on his beautiful, fast brown horse, and arrived a few hours later at a tall, incredible black fortified castle. It was tall, and slim, with eight wings spreading all around it like a spider. The standards were made of spider silk, representing a thin, beautiful, ruby eyed spider weaving a silver web and trapping a scarlet rose. The flags were flapping in the wind, and added so much majesty to the tall construction that anybody, just by looking at it, could understand how it came that Spider's Web was the most well known and beautiful castle in all the GreenLands and beyond. When he emerged in the courtyard, Drymarchon was one more time surprised by the rapidity of Araneus's information squad. A tall, black, silver and red dressed young guard, was waiting for him; he said in his young, arrogant voice as soon as Drymarchon could hear him:

'The Lord of the Spider's Web enquires what a sneaky snake can be doing in his domains.'

'Tell your master that I have something important to talk to him about,' said Drymarchon, and he added, as the guard walked away: 'tell him it is about the girl.'

This had an effect. The guard came back a few moments later, and he said:

'The Lord of the Spider's Web will talk to you.'

And he took Drymarchon to his master, while two little boys were taking his horse to the stables.

Lord Araneus was sitting in his rubies-incrusted ebony chair, looking tense and weary in his black and silver glorious clothes. Despite his late age, his face had conserved a kind of marble beauty, white and noble, with the snowy white hair fell over the tall forehead as majestically as ever. His eyes were narrow and black, and Drymarchon thought that this man was the exact portrait of his daughter. When he saw him, Araneus straightened in his chair, and said:

'So, my guard has told me you have news of my daughter.'

'I have, my Lord. She is at this very moment in my fortress, waiting for me to bring her news of her father.'

'So…You finally saw my daughter…How is she, Drymarchon? Is she beautiful?'

'She looks like you. In character as much as in physic.'

'Does she? Oh, I do want to see her.'

Drymarchon felt a casual shadow of pity for the old man. He loved his daughter because she was his only child and looked so much like him, and for this reason, he would never have her like a daughter, because of his own character.

'You shall not see her, my Lord.'

'And why is that? She is my daughter.'

'You will see her at her wedding.'

'Her wedding? Which wedding?'

'Her wedding with me.'

'Her wedding with you!' shouted Araneus, springing from his throne, 'I forbid it! I absolutely forbid it!'

'You have no choice whatsoever this matter, lord. She has disobeyed you enough in her youth to disobey you again,' said Drymarchon calmly and coldly.

'You will pay.'

'I am already,' said sinisterly Drymarchon, 'She is a girl as I never saw one. She kept cursing after the man that I employed to catch her…'

'You employed someone to catch her!' screamed the old Lord, cutting his guests words, 'Who! Who!'

'The very handsome Lord-Hunter Hawkke of the Predator's Lair.'

'Him! I'll kill him! I'll break him down! I'll destroy him!' shouted Araneus, 'And I'll send my armies at your place to take her back were she belongs!'

'If you send one man, I will kill her. And as I am your only heir after her, I suppose it wouldn't be of so bad an effect.'

'Away!' shouted Araneus, jumping to his old feet, 'Away from my castle! Away!'

Two guard stepped in, one tried to take Drymarchon by the elbow, but he stepped back, bowed ironically to the Spider Lord, and left.

**Author's Definitely Absurd After-Note: Here we go. You were able to catch one of the very few glimpses of Arach's father you shall ever get. What did you thin of him then? Does he suit his daughter? Never mind. Review, and tell me what you think about my characters. That includes Arach, Hawkke, Drymarchon and Araneus. Just tell me what's wrong with them.**

**Post-Memoris (I've just invented this so-called Latin sentence. It doesn't really mean anything. Just another note:) to say—no, truly, honestly speaking—to _BEG_ for my readers to write to me. My e-mail address is: _do_ write, I really need someone to talk to. So, desperately hoping for you to write, and waiting at the top of my tower—just e-mail me. You can talk about nearly anything you want. Including the movie _War of the Worlds_ and the _Artemis Fowl_ books. Oh, just write.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Cruel Note: here we go. The first definite touch of drama. Just read, and judge. Personally, I love this chapter—one of my best, even though if not the best. Anyway, that's your problem. Just read and review—or else I'll give you the Minotaur (combined with Trice, I think: a threat enough to make any Caid of the mafia give me all his money-niark niark niark…) **

**Chapter Twelve**

**Snake's Poison**

Arach was exhausted, and when she woke up, the night had already fallen, even thought she couldn't believe she had slept so long. She hadn't time to think anymore about it; the door flung open and Drymarchon stormed in, looking in a foul mood, yey his face suddenly calmed up when he saw the girl on the floor, staring helplessly up at him. He grinned to her, and said, gesturing towards the tray on the floor:

'So you are not hungry.'

She didn't reply.

'Well, you'd better keep me company like a true friend, girl, for you will soon be more than a prisoner, or even a friend, to me,' he said, studying the effect of his words on her face.

She started to tremble, helplessly, and it pleased him she feared him. He came toward her, but she jumped on her feet, and backed away, her back to the window.

'Don't touch me, or else I'll hurt you!' she cried, 'Don't come near me, keep away…'

He didn't take any notice, and she was so paralyzed by his coming toward her so slowly, so irresistibly, that she had a crazy idea. She flung her elbow in the window, smashing the glasses, and bent to seize a splinter of the sharp glass, cutting open her own palm as she clutched it, and flinching under the thundering avalanche of glass. He stared at her calmly, and she did nothing, just stood there shivering.

He suddenly jumped on her, and at the same time she raised her hand: the sharp edge of the splinter left a long red line on his pale cheek, but thin, and that certainly didn't hurt him much. She raised her hand again, but he seized her wrist, twisted it until she dropped her weapon, and then threw in her face a great cuff. The blow was so powerful she was hurled aside, right on the large bed. She lay there, dazed, panting, as he crushed over her, and grabbed both her hands, tying them with a rope he had picked up from his belt. He then raised her arms above her head, and tied the other side firmly at one of the beds pillars, so that she was lying with her head against one of his pillows.

'You'll pay…' she said, her voice trembling, 'You'll pay…'

He said nothing, but bent to her and pressed a cruel kiss to her dry red lips. The kiss left her breathless and gasping, and she closed her eyes against the tears; when she re-opened them, he was gone.

She started to weep, cursing him, cursing Hawkke and his mistress, cursing her parents, cursing gold, cursing everything, even the pirates, who weren't able to keep her their prisoner. And then she thought of Snaketeeth, his olive face, his greasy black hair, his wicked grin, and she smiled in her tears. She remembered his words about cursed and loved gold, his words about hate, about success and murder. It was him who had made of her what she was, and he was the only man she had ever loved, the only man she had agreed as her father and brother. He had been all her life before she fled her home.

She fell asleep eventually, but woke a few hours later, when she heard the chamber's door open and close. She couldn't see anything because of the darkness, but the splinters of glass on the floor were gone, and Drymarchon was back. He was pulling his keys out of the door, in a pocket, and he lifted his eyes behind his uncombed strands when he saw her raising her head to see what he was doing. She bit her lip and laid still. He went toward the bed, and after a brief glance to her pale face he stripped off his clothes, threw them in a corner, and slipped under the blankets. She was shivering so much her teeth were chattering, even as she was still dressed. She heard him breathe, but as he didn't move toward her, she relaxed a little bit, and finally fell asleep again.

She awaked another couple of hours later, when she felt his cold hand caressing her jaw and her neck, slowly slipping to her throat, the neck of her shirt. She gave a pitiful sob, and he took his hand away, chuckling quietly, and turned around; his breathing steadied and slowed a few minutes later, showing he'd fallen asleep. She couldn't close her eyes of all the night.

In his glorious black and gold castle, Hawkke was pacing up and down in his chamber, smashing everything he could see. He was in a foul mood; he couldn't stop thinking about Arach, to whom he had spoiled the life. The girl was not sweet and loving, and Drymarchon would probably have a hard time, but he couldn't help thinking about the pressure of her firm young breasts against his back, the soft feel of her ruby lips when he had stolen a kiss from them, the warmth of her body when she had slept in his arms, and her white face and black hair and skinny body…He sobbed with rage when he thought about what the snake Lord was probably doing to her now, and suppressed an urgent desire to go and slit his head off, and then take Arach back in his arms and crush her his forever with a kiss.

He thought about Frostrosé's pink, soft graceful body waiting for him in a chamber further in the corridor, and again he saw in his mind Arach, whom he wanted so much he had to stuff his fists in his mouth not to howl with desire. His gaze suddenly fell on the two, great bags of gold on the table next to the bed, and he thought that he would give ten times this amount of gold to have her back, just for him. He then thought about going and taking her back by force, or provoking Drymarchon in dual with her as a prize…He finally collapsed on his bed, and bit his pillow, crying and sobbing in fury, feeling desperately alone in his large cold bed, longing for the little assassin to be in his arms. He fell asleep, and dreamt of her, while Frostrosé's eyes were wide open, glittering with bitter pain in the darkness of her room.

When Arach woke up the next morning, Drymarchon was gone, and she was still tied to the bed. She felt cold, and understood why; the smashed window was now letting all the freshness of the early morning in the bedroom, and at the same time the cold warmness of the sun and the dim singing of the birds down below, in the trees of the stone courtyard. Arach told herself that this day she would have to do something, and that even if she would not be able to kill the Lord right now, she would fly and killed him later. She started to turn and wriggle her wrists to see if the rope would let her hands slip, but as it was useless; she hauled herself higher on the pillows, and pulled her head back, so that she could bit the ropes. She stayed for one hour biting and nibbling at it, and finally, her arms and neck aching, she could free herself from them, and jump away from the bed. She first went to the door, and tried to open it; it was locked. At least, she thought, he wasn't underestimating her. She sighed and went to the window, her last hope. The room was really very high, and she looked for somewhere to climb for a long time, until she had the same thought every single prisoner had for centuries: the inevitable, eternal sheets-technique. She flung to the bed, and tossed the blankets away. Then she seized the sheets, white and still warm from her body, and started to rip them into long bands. She made the same things for two other sheets she found under the mattress, and when she had some twenty five bands, she tied them together, until it formed a huge, long, rather solid line. Quickly, because she was afraid Drymarchon might come back, Arach tied one end of her tool at one of the bed's posts, and seized the other side, going toward the window and bending to look outside. Under her was the empty back-courtyard, in which a few pigs and hens were eating dry straw. She bit her lip, and with all the heedlessness of her youth, she threw herself out.

She seemed to fly at an astonishing speed down the tower, the floor closer and closer of her face every second. Her fall stopped about four or six arms from the floor, and she sighed softly, peering down at the animals that were looking up looking bored and stupid. At one point higher above her the sheet was starting to break, and soon she would crush on the floor. Quickly, like a spider on her web, she climbed higher on the line, until she reached the wall. The she sat on it, and flung about the sheets on the other side. She then heard something above her head, and she lifted her eyes; Drymarchon was standing at the window, looking astonished. She didn't wait, she knew what was coming next, she jumped.

She crushed heavily in the grass, and soon after, the sheet-rope came to fell limply beside her. Shaking so much she could barely breathe, her whole body aching, she started running with one of her legs lame. The pain was terrible, but also was Drymarchon's avidity to get her. She knew soon enough she would have a flight of knights running after her, so she suddenly turned on her heels, and instead of running away, she went to flatten against the wall. She just thought about the trouble now: the ditch, she would not be able to cross it in her state. The hell with this, she thought, and when the bridge opened, and when six or seven knights in leather armor galloped out, she threw herself on the last one to come out, grabbing his leg so that he was trailing her behind him.

He lowered his gaze and his mouth fell open with surprise, but he had no time to do any thing else; she climbed on the horse behind him, caught hold of his sword, and pulled it away from its sheath, as the same time as pushing the men off his steed. The man screamed as he fell heavily on the floor, but Arach now possessed both the horse, and the sword, and she was galloping behind the other knights, who hadn't notice anything.

From the top of his tower, however, Drymarchon had noticed. Quick as a snake, he took hold of the arrow he always carried at his flank. It was a poison arrow, a deadly poison arrow, and it had just to shot; it would enter its goal's heart even if it had to cross the whole world. The Snake House had always carried one in their life, and it was their custom, and it was that day that Drymarchon, one of the greatest heirs, was tossing it to a girl next to which he had slept. He took a bow from behind his bed, nocked drew the arrow, and let loose the string; and watched with marvel as he saw it, weightless and infinitely graceful, plunge down, and then speed toward the galloping girl. It was one of the knights that saved the girls live. It was a tall, thin man, looking anxious and miserable. He turned his head toward Arach, apparently to tell to his comrade to do something, and saw her. With a yell, he stopped his steed dead. Arach's one crashed in it, and she was tossed forward, at the moment when the arrow was going to plunge in her back. The arrow missed its goal, but not so much, as it pushed in her shoulder. She groaned, and fell, unconscious, on top of the other knight, who had felt the blade of the arrow in his own shoulder.

At the top of his tower, Drymarchon smiled, and disappeared.

**Author's Austere After-Note: here we go. Next chapter is the death of Arach, and this is the end—all right, did you believe it? I hope not. I'm not that evil—not like J.K.Rowling, I mean evil enough to kill one of my best characters, (no offense meant Jo.)**

**Anyway; I hope you loved this chapter, I think it's splendid. Please Review—I mean, not _please_. I mean review, and that's an order. I mean you must do it, or else something singularly nasty's gonna happen-something troll nasty (no, I'm kidding. Talking of troll nasty, I've just finished reading the _Opal Deception_—perfectly wicked!) Never mind, just one word: REVIEW! (and e-mail me! This is an S.O.S., you could get in jail for non-assistance to person in danger if you don't, niark niark niark.)**


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Classic Note: I wonder if any of you (my readers) ever read Dracula. Well, that's not the point, but it just popped in my mind (as some things often do—I mean sometimes an idea or word just pops in my mind, and then good luck to chase it. For example sometimes as I am meditating Plato's philosophy—honest!—it happens that I think about tweedledee and tweedledum, which is perfectly ludicrous. If I had been playing chess and thought about them, that would have been normal—but there is _no logical_ link between Plato and the two towers (not the _lord of the rings_ ones, silly, the _through the looking-glass_ ones!) Never mind. That's not the point.) **

**Um, sorry for this nonsense upstairs. Its my—um, twisted-minded personality; Ink of the Night-Castel. But here we go: a small chapter. "Antidote" is a magnificent word, and I love it. I was going to call this chapter antidote, but it is more normal to call it the name of the antidote in question, you must admit (will you admit, scoundrel! Traitor! Um, excuse him, that's Colonel Constantine, an old soldier, incurable…:_theatrically tragic sigh_: Never mind. Read and review!**

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Last Cure**

It was a few minutes later that Hawkke appeared at the other side of the field, looming up suddenly in the horizon, black and gold against blue. The other knights were all gone, scattered in the plain, but it wasn't what he was looking for. He was coming to talk to Drymarchon, and to try to get the girl back. He rode slowly toward the castle, his eyes fixed on the slim, tall tower, thinking about what he was going to say, and it was just when he passed by them that he noticed the two inanimate bodies on the floor. The two horses had fled, galloping, frightened, in the plain, and they were just them, with a pool of blood under them, one on top of the other, with the black and green arrow standing tall and proud over them, its two green feathers making a kind of crest. Hawkke, curiously, alarmed, pulled his horse toward them, and suddenly, like thunderstruck, he noticed the long curtain of silky raven hair on the black back.

With a gasp, he jumped from his horse, and knelt next to the two bodies. He glanced at the arrow, took it sharply out of the lifeless body. He bit his lip when he recognized the famous Snake's Poison arrow, known in all the GreenLands for their cruelty and uniqueness. He tossed it aside, and pulled Arach's body off the man's. The tunic was ripped at her shoulder, revealing a clean, sharp cut, ruby red against the snow of her skin. A slow stream of blood was flowing down in to her corset, and his gaze rested for a moment on the birthing of her breasts, and then flew to her ghostly face. Her eyes were closed, and two bright pink pools were growing darker and wider every minute on her cheeks. She was badly poisoned, and would certainly never get out with it; the Snake's poison known to be mortal. He bit his lip again, to blood, fighting the howls of sorrow and pain that were creeping up his throat, hugging her hard against his chest, and burying his face in her hair. He clasped the hand that wasn't holding her on to her bleeding shoulder, and felt the hot blood under his gloved hand, soaking the silk. He stood still for a few minutes, wanting her more than ever, desperate to know that she would die, and that he would never have had her. Then he thought about the Alchematoria of Nariee. They knew everything, and she was one of them, they would probably be able to do something. Then he thought about the half dozen little bottles and vials he had stole from her cloak, and that perhaps he would find a remedy in them. He wished he would have the power to give life, he wished he had never give her over to Drymarchon, he wished he had never see her at all.

He stood up on his feet, shaking slightly, and lifted her thin, weak body. He took her to his horse, a magnificent night-black beast, with a silky black mane, and hauled her on its back. Then he sat behind her, clutching her close so that she couldn't fall, and went away from Drymarchon's fortress, the powerful, black Night-Speed galloping through the fields with all the power of its long legs. They crossed the distance between Serpent Stone and Predator's Lair as quick as thunder light, and it was with surprise that his men and people looked at him loom in the courtyard, holding a thin black shape in the crook of one arm.

After he had sent a man to look after the warrior that he had found under the girl and had barely looked at, Hawkke nearly threw Arach in the arms of Blackwing, who said:

'S'light as a feather, t'li'l kid,' he said, looking down at her deathly pale face fondly, 'Ain't sweet, for a kid, but ain't bad, too.'

'Just shut up your mouth, and bring her to my bedchamber,' snapped Hawkke, running in his caves with a whirl of his gold and black cloaks.

He jostled everyone until he had reached his secret study. It was a dark, windowless room, lit by flaming torches at the dark stoned wall, and furnished with a narrow bed in a corner, a long dark wooden table on which were heaped piles of parchments, tall, glittering jars with strange things in them, little wood and metal boxes, and things he probably didn't even knew what was in. Piles of books were creeping on the cold stone floor, and he had to jump over them to reach his work-table, before which he heavily sat on a high-backed chair. Then he started to fumble through all his boxes, until he found the one in which he had stuffed all the bottles he had been able to find in the pockets of the assassin. He pulled the little chest on his knees, and started to inspect each of the little bottles and tiny jars and vials. Three were labeled: 'Mortal Poison (Night Art)', two were 'Cures for Nearly Everything (Not to fell in a victims hand, nor in the Gold's), and then they were a half dozen of varied ones: 'Confusion (for the guards if the Vic. is Tall)', 'Might Death Strike Them All (careful, that one's precious, might need it for the BBA.)', 'Last Cure (definitely not to fell under Vic.'s hand, mustn't use for I either.)'.

Hawkke stopped at that one. So Arach was ready to die rather than use a stolen cure, even if she lived with the money she drew from the murders? He thought that one would probably help, and glanced at the inside of the small bottle. It was a pure, color-less liquid, transparent as crystal, fragranced with a mix of snow-scent and a sharp, strange perfume. The flask was filled to the brim, and on the bottom of it he found another little label: 'One drop heals a drop, two heals two, death goes away when the drop strikes, and never comes back till…' It was a stupid label; Hawkke decided to try three. He stormed out of the caves, crossed the yard, the hall, climbed the stairs, and burst in his room. Arach was lying on her back, still, and her hair had been delicately pulled behind her head, so that her pale face seemed sharply neat white against the shadow of her hair.

Hawkke strode toward his bed and sat at the edge. He stared at her motionless face for a long time, and then he started to examine her wound. It was incredibly clean, but the cloth around it was soaked with blood. Gently, the hunter eased the cold white arm out of the shirt, and cut the corset laces open with his dagger. He slipped it away, opened the chemise in the same way, and took it away too. He threw both clothing articles on the floor, and when he turned back at her, he found her impossibly alluring, with her bare shoulders and throat, dressed only with a piece of black silk she wore around her chest to flatten her already so small breasts. Sighing slowly, catching his breath, he loosened the cloth, and bend to kiss the birthing of the breast, just under the collarbone; abandoning his lips against the soft white flesh. She smelled of chalk, and of sweet mountain flower, an oddly feminine kind of fragrance, that he would never be able to forget. He sighed again, and took a damp sheet of silk he had prepared, and washed the wound, until there was no more blood on the white skin. The cut had stopped bleeding, but instead of being a good new, Hawkke thought it was probably a bad one, and he bent over her, the little bottle in his hand. Slowly, infinitely delicately, he tipped the bottle, and let one drop fell on the wound, then another, and a third. Then he sat back, put the bottle on his table, and sighed heavily.

He waited next to her for two hours, then he had to go down to eat, even though he didn't fell like leaving her. He left her with a last glance to her white body and wondering painfully whether she would survive or not.

When she woke up, Arach was first conscious of a throbbing pain at her shoulder. She opened her eyes, sighing faintly. She was in a large, cold chamber, with drawn black silk curtains at the window, and lit with torches and a feeble fire in the hearth. She was lying in a large, black marble bed, with thick, soft black furs all around her, feeling secure, yet disagreeably hot and cold at the same time. She knew she was in Hawkke's bedchamber, and she was enraged by this. Had he not poisoned her life badly enough? She sat up, clutching her wound, snarling:

'He's going to pay. Ach yes. I'm going to stick a dagger in his ribs and make him regret…'

'All you shall do will never make me regret more than I already regret.'

She nearly jumped, and turned her head sharply. He was sitting next to her on the bed, looking pale in the faint light. She felt hate, at the memory of him playing with her, and giving her over to Drymarchon.

'Kill me, hunter, kill me while I can't do anything to you. Or else you'll regret it.'

He said nothing, just gazed forlornly at her pure throat. She lowered her eyes to the subject of his wistful stare, and blushed furiously, the dark pink spreading over her ghastly pale cheeks. She crossed her valid arm, gathering her black silks to her high, white chest, and said:

'You're going to pay.'

He said nothing, still staring at her, until finally, she couldn't bear his silence anymore. She tried to stand up, but too harshly, too quickly; she fell heavily sitting on the bed. She turned her exasperated look at Hawkke.

'You nearly died…' he whispered sorrowfully.

He pulled her against him, with one hand lustfully caressing her burning wound.

'Let me go! I hate you…'

'What can all your hate do against my love…' he whispered against her hair.

She said nothing, fought him with all the might she could muster—which was miserably little. His chest was firm, and muscled, and he held her hard. She couldn't resist him. He gently pulled her on her back, and stroked her lips with his fingers, then he bent and kissed her. She felt good, incredibly good underneath him, and she slowly opened her mouth when his tongue caressed the bloody red lips. He remained over her, kissing her gently, leaving all his love and desire, his sharp need for her, go in this kiss she had let him take, in spite of her own burning, consuming hate. Suddenly, he stopped. Stuffing both his hands in her hair, he raised himself slightly, and looked down at her. There were tears in her narrow black eyes.

'Leave me alone…'

She touched a trembling hand over his mouth.

'I hate you…'

He pulled away from her, took away his cloak and tunic, and stretched next to her, gathering a thick, large fur over their two bodies. Still crying, she snuggled against his warm, bare chest, and closed her eyes. She fell asleep immediately, but he stayed awake for a long time, his eyes wide open in the darkness, caressing the white, soft shoulder of the beloved whop would never be his…

**Author's Spell-Breaking After-note: I know, this note is not fit for this chapter—but what do you want: I must write it. I love this chapter, especially the second paragraph, which was splendid. I hope you enjoyed reading—do review, and if you do, well, I'll remember you when I'll become the new J.K.Rowling. So, I warned you. Review mates!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Desolating Note: So. This chapter marks the end of a main part, and the beginning of the second. I advice you to read carefully; to sit back, relax, hold on tight to your teddy bear (no! and how old are you exactly!) I just wanted to say: I love this chapter too. Well, I now it looks as if I love all my chapters but: _don't care don't wanna care_—that's my motto (better than _Memento Mori_, for those who read the _Austere Academy_, by this dear _Lemony Snicket_.)**

**Never mind, just read and review (you know what, I always wondered why we couldn't do rhymes with the beginning instead of the end of words, I mean like: Constantine was constantly communicating to the commander about constipation—oops, this dear colonel's not gonna like this! That's not the point. Just review!)**

**Chapter Fourteen**

**Alchematoria**

When he woke up the next morning, Hawkke groaned mournfully. He could know by the feel of the empty space beside him that she had gone, and he regretted it. He felt more than ever cold in his too large bed, he ached to have her again, to feel the silky touch of her shoulder, the skinny pressure of her hand against his chest, the feel of her lips, soft and reticent, beneath his. He wanted to keep her for him, and at the same time he knew he would never be able to; she had succeeded in escaping Drymarchon's fortress, she would success in escaping him always. He sighed and sat down, at the same time sad and angry.

He slipped away from the blankets and started to look for his clothes. He didn't find them, but instead find a pile of black clothes in a corner. He lifted them in the dim day light. There were her skirts, and her beautiful shirt. He grunted, and sighed, and smiled.

Arach didn't have the money to pay her passage on the _Sea Demon_. Or at least, she hadn't the desire to pay at all. She straightened her long coat she had stolen back from Hawkke, peered down at the breeches and boots she had found in his wardrobe, and tried to hide her too richly embroidered corset behind the black tunic that smelt unnervingly the perfume she knew all too well. Her hair was uncombed, but she didn't care about it. She stepped toward the sea merchant that was following his sailors' gestures, and stood beside him, sighing softly and looking delicately fatalist.

'It is such a beautiful ship,' she said quietly, and sighed again.

The merchant, a tall, white haired man looking very stern and strong, turned to her and frowned.

'Ye like it?' he demanded.

'Oh yes. My dream is to have a ship like that.'

It wasn't that difficult to lie, as the ship really was beautiful. It was long, and slim, with dazzling white sails swelling under the violent northern wind. The prow was long and sharp, and a long, deliciously shaped mermaid was carved gracefully under it, the same image as the very tall flag that was flapping in the wind: a white flag, with as emblem a mermaid holding up a bag of glittering gold in one hand and a balance in the other; the emblem of the sea merchants.

'Whass yer name, lass?' asked the old man.

'Rach, my lord,' answered Arach, turning her head to look curiously at two sailors who were carrying a heavy box.

'Rach,' I've never heard 'bout this name,' he said suspiciously, and added to the two sailors in a shout: 'Ye jerks, ask someone to help you! No! not him, he has something else to…Nah! Stop! The other side, the other side, you sea morons!'

'D'you need a cook?' asked Arach very matter-of-factly.

'Nay.'

Arach saw on his face that he had understand what was in her mind.

'Alright,' he finally said,' I'll take you without money, but you shall help the sailors, even if you look more like a spider that a shark or a dolphin.'

'Thanks, Lord,' said Arach brightly, bouncing to the ship.

'And I ain't a bloody lord!' he called after her, 'I am Captain Seaskull!'

'Right captain!'

The first three days of the journey, nothing very important happened. The Captain as well as his men started to feel sorry to have take Arach with them. She was the only female on board, and was a terrible pest. She cooked abominable meals just for the sake of it, threw stones to the sailors from the crow's nest, one day, she even pushed one of them overboard, just to see if he was a good swimmer, and truly, for his own sake, she explained afterwards. She was so unbearable that one day Seaskull threatened to throw _her_ away overboard if she didn't stop, but she didn't stop, and he didn't throw her anyway. Because as annoying as she was, all the men of the boat loved her. The captain saw in her what he was when he was her age, the sailors liked to laugh at her awful anecdotes while eating her burned stews, and they all enjoyed to see her climb in the crows nest, or hang head down from the strings that were mixed with the pillars of wood and the sails. They also enjoyed when she played dirty tricks on their comrades, or when she was being told off by the Cap'ain, who often yelled his head of while she just looked at him in a perfectly innocent way. She also was excellent in sailor chess, and they admired her for her tales of how she had been with the control of two ships and an army of pirates for three hours; a tale they didn't believe the least, but liked nevertheless. It was when they entered the edges of the Misty Sea that the atmosphere started to tense. The sailors had a good laugh one night, because when she had noticed the tension, Arach had made herself to tiny and sweet that even Seaskull had laughed without being able to stop himself.

The pirates of the Wreck attacked three days later. Seaskull grew cold and tall like an ice statue, and ordered to his men to attack. Arach admired him, and in her heart he rose to a place nearly as high as Snakehiss's. She remembered the disastrous fight on Grain's ship, and admired even more the grace and perfect harmony of the sailors' movements as they formed their ranks, armed with their clean, well-kept sharp cutlasses, daggers and axes, with five archers climbed among the sails, with their sharp arrows ready to strike. Seaskull was shouting himself hoarse with orders, and when the wood of Wreck touched the Sea Demon's, a huge crash echoed on the smooth sea as the two groups collided. Again a massive fight; but this time the sailors were nearly as much skilled as the Pirates, and they were not quite loosing. Arach, as for herself, was in her element. She had seized a cutlass from the hands of a pirate she had kicked, and was now striking with great unleashed gestures, splashing blood all over her clothes and face. She enjoyed herself so much she wanted the battle to last forever, but as it had to happen, a blade touched her. It opened a short but deep cut in her valid arm, the one that was not touched by the Snake's Poison, from which the sleeve had been torn off in the battle, and she bit her lips not to cry out. She didn't want to withdraw, and went on fighting, until a blade again struck her, at the thigh, and then she _had_ to withdraw, breathing heavily, smothering behind her teeth the screams of pain that were rising in her throat. She backed away in a dark corridor, opened a door leading to a tiny bedroom, the captain's, which was very simply furnished with a bed, a little table on which was a shuffled candle, and chest in a corner. Blood and sweat streaming in rivulets down her face like bizarre tears, Arach collapsed on the bed, curling in a tight ball, too dazed by the pain to move. Her cutlass had fallen on the floor with a cluttering noise and gone still, and she wanted to kill herself at the thought that if a pirate came in the room, he would be able to do everything without her being able to defend herself.

'Ah, here you are. My men were right. You,_ again_. When will you learn that the sea is not the place for wenches?'

Arach, with a hissing breath, bolted straight upright, and hurt her arm even more as she tried to take back her blade from the floor.

Requin, looking enormously satisfied, was standing in the room, leaning against the door he had closed behind him. His eyes were dazzling, and his smile was as handsome as never, as he idly lowered his gaze to the pale girl.

'You ought to be fighting with your men, pirate,' she said through gritted teeth.

'They can manage without me,' he said with an amiable smile, 'so, where is this very attractive hunter of yours?'

'None of your business', she snarled.

'Has he finally taken this maidenhead of yours he wanted so much?' continued Requin fearlessly.

She hissed, and rolled over herself, crashing on the floor, and seizing the weapon with her valid arm. It was no luck, because her valid arm was the arm were Drymarchon's arrow had touched her, and it wasn't really quite healed. She had to assume too much wounds in not enough time. She gathered herself on her knees, humiliated before him.

He was going to pay, she swore to herself. He knelt down beside her, and gently twisted the weapon out of her hand. Then he hauled her on the bed, and started to examine her wound.

'It is a deep wound, girl,' he whispered, ripping a piece from her tunic to bandage it, 'You need to learn to take care of that white body of yours and stop playing the man with your cutlass.'

He tied the cloth around the wound, and wiped the blood away with a piece of his own red tunic. Then he bent over her, and kissed her in the neck. She shivered, and jerked away from him, again falling from the bed. He slipped down beside her, and, seizing her by the shoulders, he said in a breath:

'I've been thinking of you ever since the hunter took you away from me…'

Then he clasped his mouth to hers in an ardent kiss. She hated him for this, and at the same time her body ached for more. Too many men kissed her, she thought, seeing in her mind Hawkke, and then Drymarchon, and punched him in the stomach, flinging him away from her. He fell backward, but the punch had hurt her more than it had hurt him. She fell, off-balanced, on top of him. Immediately, taking advantage of her obvious weakness, he clasped her hair in both his hands, and turned sharply over, so that he was on top of her, then, with an idle movement, he let his mouth fell on hers. She sobbed, and was all too much conscious of his lean body against hers, pinning her down on the floor and molding each single of her own limbs.

'Stop fighting me,' he whispered, 'your body is made to be possessed—stop battling against your own fate…'

With rage, she wondered how she managed to make every man want her when the only thing she wanted was to live alone with her money and her crimes. He suddenly released her, and knelt, breathing heavily, looking down at her with a smile at the edge of his lips.

'You see, the job of girls is to please men,' he said nastily, 'and you are too attractive just to slip away like that.'

'Curse you,' she said.

She bit her lips, and when he kissed her again, breathlessly, her hand started to fumble in one of her pockets, until she found what she was looking for. The familiarly odd contour of a little bottle beneath her fingers made her feel exhilarated, and when she smiled unconsciously, he stuffed his tongue in her mouth. Without any thought, she bit it, hard, and he jumped back.

'Ah, of course. Now you want to make me dumb. Too bad…'

'Now, you go away from me, or I poison you,' she said, showing him the green jar she had in her hand.

His eyes suddenly narrowed, darkening with rage and exasperation.

'You won,' he said merely, glaring at her.

He pulled away from her, and sat heavily on the bed, looking at her with a look of desperate hunger.

'One last kiss,' he said hoarsely, his voice loosing its casualness.

'No,' she replied, sitting next to him.

'I'll give you anything, just a last kiss, girl.'

'Anything?' she repeated with a large smile spreading over her face despite the throbbing pain at her arm and thigh.

'Anything. I want your mouth.'

'All right. Tell your man to go away from this ship.'

'I will. Now my kiss.'

'Not yet. And, would you…'

She bit her lip and stopped.

'What?' he urged, edging toward her on the bed.

'Stay away,' she said, brandishing her poison, 'Just, if you see a ship coming there…I mean…Well, I don't want the hunter to bother me anymore, if you see what I mean.'

'I will do this. But you have asked two things,' he said hopefully, and it seemed he was getting madder and madder about her every second.

'All right, but first, call all your men out.'

When all his men had left the Sea Demon, Requin turned toward Arach who had standing next to him looking at his ship. The men behind them were busy trying to heal their wound, and nobody really noticed them. He slipped a hand around her waist and drew her hard to him.

'Who knew the shark could be softened by the spider,' she said playfully.

She grinned, and seized a handful of the black dirty hair at the back of his head, twisting it, and pulled it to her. She gave him a tiny kiss, just a peck, on the cheek, but when she tried to take him away, his threw his lips back on hers, and kissed them desperately.

'Come with me,' he whispered, hoarse with passion, 'My men like you, you will rule with me, just come. I want you…'

'You have your kiss, now go away,' she said, pushing him away.

'You'll pay, girl, I'll have you, I swear,' he said darkly, and with a last burning kiss, he left.

The end of the journey was without incident, and when they arrived at Stone ports, in the middle of the afternoon, Arach felt as good as when she had first arrived there. She immediately plunged in the birthing mist of the beginning of evening, after she had left a little kiss of Seaskull's old wrinkled cheek. The damp, cold air immediately colored her pale cheeks with a little veil of bright pink, and her eyes gleamed as she slipped through the dim crowd that was all around her. She sidled and slipped, until finally she emerged from the crowd in an empty, sinister place. Dominating it and all the houses around, the Alchematoria was standing very tall and dark in the lowering light, dim firelight and dark fumes slipping through its narrow windows. Arach had grown up in the magnificence of one of the most beautiful fortress in GreenLands, and yet al her admiration was focused on this tower; the tower of mystery, the tower of poisons and drugs, the tower from which very few came out, because when you came in, you were so bewitched by what was inside that you couldn't be bothered by what was outside anymore. Arach, smiling for herself, strode toward the door. It was a tall, carved iron door, with nothing but a tiny little lock at the left edge of the right panel. Arach stuffed a gloved hand in her hair and took it out the next second, holding between two fingers a tiny, gleaming black iron key. She slipped it in the lock, and with a little snap, the door opened silently.

She stepped in, and immediately it closed behind her. She was in the Main Hall of the First Floor, a long, high ceiled corridor, with a cold, hard dark stoned floor, and tapestries hiding each of the twenty doors that were cutting through the perfect, cold walls. One was a blue tapestry showing a mermaid brandishing a little flask; it looked like the bourse the Merchant's mermaid was carrying but it was thinner, and longer, and sparkles were escaping from the opened neck. Then there was another blue tapestry, but this time with a silver dolphin circled with seaweeds, glittering fishes and gleaming SeaStones. The next one was yet another blue one, with a tall woman dressed in a long white robe, lifting both her arms to the sky, and with water flowing all around her, and an eel coiling around both the arms. All the other's doors had blue tapestries, with each a different drawing, and Arach walked past them all, caressing their smooth, velvety surfaces, until she arrived at the far end of the corridor. A snail staircase led to another corridor, hanged with pale orange tapestries; Arach walked past them as before, on the other side, and reached another snail staircase, leading this time to a pink corridor. Gold, deep brown, shining blue, dark red, silver, violet, grey, white, black , beige, floor after floor, she climbed, the colors succeeding themselves with each time a different shade and tint, until she finally reached the finally reached the seventeenth and last floor. It was a pale and dark greens hanged corridor, with torches burning between each door, and little windows opened in the ceiling, leaving ugly pools of pale, silvery grey on the floor. Arach nearly ran to the tenth door, and stopped abruptly. The tapestry was representing a little green bottle, with bubbles bursting from it, and a skull was lying under it, with next to it three empty flasks. Her eyes shimmering like the mirrors of an insane joy, Arach pulled aside the tapestry, opened the heavy door, stepped in, and closed it behind her.

Immediately, the deep fragrances of poison struck her, and she shivered with the violent pleasure caused by the retrieval of this place she had longed to be in for so long. The corridor was smaller, narrower, darker, and the smell was richer than in the main hall. It was the poison's fragrance, a fragrance anybody would find unbearable, but that Arach had fallen in love with.

She strode towards a special door she knew well, on which was pinned a dirty, old yellowish parchment. A long chilling poem was scribbled down on it, and at the end, a long, thin name was written in the same scribbled writing: Dr Morphine.

Arach flung the door open, stepped in, yelling:

'I am back, doc!'

The room was long and narrow, with two long tables running along the two walls, surcharged with bottles, boxes, flasks, jars, vials, fires, shelves bursting with pots full of things solid or liquid, alive or death, shining and dark or pale and dull, moving or immobile, noisy or silent; piles of books were creeping down the stone floor, some opened, some thrown across the room, rolls of parchments were scattered around the place, some pinned on the wall, some making blankets of paper…

In the middle of the room were three huge fires, on which were bubbling even bigger cauldrons; and the smokes were creeping to the ceiling, from which hanged snakes, birds, herbs, onions, rabbits, garlic, foxes, fishes, bunches of feathers, bouquets of flowers, tails of unknown animals, tufts of gleaming hair, unicorn's horns, and a large variety of things even stranger and gloomier. A black cat was lazily lying on a tall chair not far from the door, gazing at Arach with its eyes shining like coins of gold fallen in a swamp. The cat suddenly got to its feet, gathered itself, and with a tiger like, graceful leap, jumped in Arach's arms. She hugged it and scratched its smooth fur under the mouth were sharp white teeth were showing. The cat started to purr and closed its eyes.

'Ah, here you are, Arach, my dear, come over here and help me to study and calculate this formulae on which I don't have a clue.'

The squeaking, amiable, busy voice of her Master lifted Arach's head. He was a small man, and looked even smaller bending in his chair over a huge fat book. His hair was white and bushy, and his eyes behind tiny spectacles were the only thing that was really beautiful on him; they were dark, and gleaming like a DarkStone, with splinters of silver edging the little irises. The eyes were vivid, and strangely lively and young in his old, wrinkled white face. He was dressed with a long white robe he was already wearing when she had first arrived in his laboratory, with a dirty leather apron tied around his waist, protecting his old chest from the dangerous drugs he was manipulating.

He didn't think to have notice Arach's absence at all, and stayed over other people's affairs as ignorant as everybody was in the Alchematoria, too busy to give a thought to others.

'Would you mind passing me some zombie powder, my darling?'

Arach, silently, threw him a little bag she had picked on the wall where a thousand of other little bags were hanging, and went to sit in her chair, still stroking the cat's silky black fur. All the rest of the day, until dark, Arach worked next to the Master, until finally she heard the dim howl of wolf that was emanating from a wolf-and-rooster clock which's noise was muffled by the other noises of the room, the squeaks and squeals of the animals, the bubbling and hissing of the cauldron the mutters of the old man, the noises of the machines on the table at the far end of the room…

When she heard the familiar cry of Night, Arach pulled the sleeping cat back on the chair, and slipped away from the room. Like a shadow, she slipped all her way down the Tower of Drugs.

When she was outside, she strode toward the Dancing tree, and the first beggar that was in her way got such a kick in the jaw that he was flung away from the ground and crushed against a tree. When she reached the inn, and stepped in, her first thing was to cry:

'Inn-keeper! Any job for me?'

'Two persons in the room seventy seven!' cried back a voice from the counter.

Arach slipped in through the crowd, and reached another room, slightly smaller than the first, but with just two peoples inside it. One was a tall grey haired man, the other a young, rich looking lord.

'I take both the jobs. The well paid tonight, the other tomorrow,' she said, sitting next to the fire, and leaning back.

'I give you one gold imperial if you kill my wife,' said the grey haired man.

'Tcha, ask somebody else. One coin's nothing,' said disdainfully Arach.

The man strode away, moodily slamming the wooden door behind him, and Arach turned to the rich young lord. He was very subtle looking, with curly dark blond hair and narrow eyes that sparkled silver.

'I hope you're not from GreenLands,' she growled threateningly.

'I am not. I am Lord Thunderion, from the Imperial City. I presume you are the famous Arach.'

She grunted, and he went on.

'I have one thousand empire gold to offer for one murder.'

She jerked upright, her eyes widening like an owl's; unbelieving, thrown off-balance.

'Who?'

'The Emperor.'

**Author's Triumphant After-Note: You know what? When I finished reading this, I went downstairs—_I mean I actually came out of my bedroom_, and I hugged my mother, my three _brothers_ (!), shook hand with them and kissed my baby sister. This chapter is glorious, it is supreme, exquisite, and the last two lines are totally staggering. Do review, I beg you, I need to know what you think about it all. It is so beautiful I can't believe it from myself. I am a genius!**

**Post-Memoris: just a quick note about names I forgot to tell you earlier:**

**First, I just wanted to say that the name Arach, like in _Arachna_, taken form the word _Arachnid_, is pronounced Ara_ck_ and not Ara_sh_.**

**Then, I also wanted to tell you: _requin_ in French means shark. So, here you go. Remember this. **


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Photosynthesis-Obsessed Note: Here you go. The beginning of the journey. Boring chapter, I know, but well, I must make the suspense hold. You know what I am going to ask now, don't you: Please read and review. I said read and review, instead of Read. And. Review, because I want you to read-and-review, those two done one after the other but most importantly, _both must be done_. You got that, right?**

**Chapter Fifteen**

**Journey's Beginning**

'If you kill the emperor for me, you will get the thousand.'

Arach was so stunned that she didn't say anything for several minutes.

'A team of my finest hand-men will help you, but you will kill because I have been told that you had extraordinary killing skills, and some strange, unknown weapons.'

Arach had never realized how much she was being told about before. The hell, this man knew certainly things he shouldn't.

'You see, this Kingdom is falling into ruins. The emperor is in his beautiful castle, eating delicious meals, and sleeping in beds of satin and feathers, while others are crouching in misery. It has to change. But we can't raise anyone else to power unless he is dead. This is where you're going to help me.'

Arach remained a few moments thinking calculatingly. She did not care about the emperor, or StonePort's measly state, nor did she care about other's life or projects; she was selfish, and the only thing she was seeing in this proposition was the thousand she would get in exchange of a single Assassination. It was a hope beyond all hope; it was something gleaming in the dark path of her life. She ravenously grabbed hold of the opportunity; she said:

'I will do this.'

'Very well; the matter is settled. But you can't just go, stick a knife in his ribs and go back as if nothing was. You and the men I will give you for help will have to raise plans. Meanwhile, I will, of course, disappear…'

'Of course,' Arach said sarcastically.

'You will be able to meet them at my castle, not far from the imperial one. You will be my guest of honor, and you will have rooms and a status as any other guest, so that you will not be far from the Emperor. If you agree, we can set on road right now.'

'As you wish, I am coming, but I want to tell you that I would rather work alone,' said Arach, who really did want to work alone.

'I am sorry, but that shall be impossible,' said Thunderion, rising from his chair, and smoothing his rich cloaks of elegant dark fawn colors, 'So, we'd better be on our way.'

'Wait. I must do something first,' said Arach, 'I will meet you at the end of the Main Path'

'May it be so. See you later.'

'Yeah, yeah…'

Arach stormed away from the Dancing Tree, bumping into peoples as she ran, and not caring to apologize. She ran straight to the Alchematoria, slammed the door open and shut, and climbed all the way up to the top of the tower, in the room at the far end of the corridor. She opened the heavy wooden door with the same key she used for the main one, and stepped in. it was the room were the Alchematorians kept all their poisons, remedy, cures, heals, sleeping and zombie powders, and many else that even themselves didn't know about. Arach went straight at the end of the room, took one of the many leather bags of all size; a narrow, frayed one with a long shoulder strap. She then made the turn of the room, picking here there little bottles, bags, or jars, stuffing them all in the bag, until it finally was clinking full. Then, she pulled away her coat, hanged the bag around her chest, and pulled the coat back on, closing it so that nobody could see what was behind.

Tossing her hair away from her eyes, she stormed down the tower, and zoomed off it. She bumped an old man away from her path, and hurtled down it, and stopped dead in front of Thunderion, at the end of the Main Path. He was sitting on a tall, strong white horse, and his hood was pulled over his face; he also had a sword at his flank, and he was curbing another horse, a savage black one. Arach, panting, said:

'I haven't been to long?'

'No,' he replied, passing her over the bridle, 'You were fast and swift.'

Arach, ignoring the two leather straps, stuffed both her hands in the horse's mane, and hauled herself on its back. The horse held strangely still, and didn't rear up, as it had done with many trained knights.

'What's his name?' she asked, sitting up, and taking the bridles in her gloved hands.

'Ebony,' he merely said, and they set off.

The beginning of the journey was without any problems. Thunderion seemed to possess a certain reputation in the surroundings and he used it shamelessly. They rode all the night, then had a halt in a poky inn, were the inn-keeper gave them some bread and cheese, dried meat and fruits, and a bottle of cider for the road. They set of again after that, and rode off in one go, stopping just one time to silently eat the inn-keeper's food. They stopped in another dingy cottage for the night and set off again in the very early morning, as the sun chased the mists towards the sea to let a better road for the travelers.

As they were getting further and further away from StonePorts to the Light-less Woods which they had to cross to reach the Imperial city, the landscape became wider and more empty and desolated. Scavengers were flying slowly in the grey sky, crying their glum cries of death and carrion. The soil itself was dry and the grass that was growing out of it had a sick air about it, falling over the floor, and more pale grey of color than green. There was, apart from the vultures in the sky, no sign of life on these deserted fields, and they had to hold on with the food they had got from the last inn in which they had rested. They rode all day and slept at night when the thick mist covered the floor and hid their view, sleeping on the hard floor without feeling rested at all.

When after three days they finally reached the Light-Less forest, Arach's whole body was bruised and aching, and she felt as if she would never take another step in her life, so exhausted she was after these long days of silent riding and un-refreshing sleeps. She fell from Ebony's back on the cold hard grown, her nose in the dry, unhealthy grass, and closed her narrow eyes. She wanted very much to fell into blessed sleep, but she sat down again, feeling ashamed in front of Thunderion, who had tied both the horses to a tall, solitary tree next to them which seemed to point the beginning of the very well known, infinitely beautiful and grim Light-Less Woods. The Lord was already gathering small twigs and dry branches to make a fire, and she would have like to help him, show him she was strong and willing, but she really couldn't move, she stood sitting there, looking up at him helplessly with her heavy-lidded, black-circled eyes.

'You sleep a bit, then I will wake you up so that we may eat; then you will guard while I sleep,' he said at her, piling the wood, and fumbling through his cloak looking for matches.

Arach sighed deeply, leaned back on the floor, curling into a tight ball in the wide coat, placing her bag of poison and rug bottles over her free side so that she may not break them and she slept, and closed her eyes. Numb with the cold and humidity of the mist, shivering despite herself, Arach fell asleep while Thunderion was roasting some meat, looking at her with a look of pity, for this little kid who had killed so much people, and thought she knew everything of life when she had not even passed the gates to her own true life.

He woke her up several hours later, when the night had totally fallen, dark and heavy like doom, and the mists were entirely covering them of its silvery, treacherous webs of gossamer silks. The dim silhouette of the tree was standing like a dark pillar, the strange noises of the night beasts of these popularly dangerous woods just next were echoing in the fog. Arach awoke and sat up feeling number than ever, the cold dampness penetrating her coat, her tunic, her corset, her chemise, her skin; and she felt as if her heart had been plunged into a bucket of icy water. Breathing heavily, and pulled both her gloved hands over the fire, and sniffed the delicious scent of the roasting meat.

'Here,' said Thunderion's voice next to her.

She started. He was sitting beside her, but she hadn't been able to see him through the thick mist. In fact, the only thing she could see was the fire. She grabbed the smoking piece of meat he had stuck under her nose, and bite into it life a wolf in the throat of a fat goat. Thunderion studied her as she ate, his eyes narrowed against the fog's thick white veils.

'You're good at murdering, but are you as good at fighting for your life?' he suddenly enquired.

Arach, shrugging, swallowed her meat, and grumbled in undertones:

'I have already fought my way through many an ambuscade…'

'Ah, because your murders were not as effective as most of the time?'

'No. Because I was on a ship, and was attacked by pirates hidden in the mist. And I don't murder, I assassinate. Murder is a rude word for such a gracefully beautiful art.'

He didn't ask her what she was doing on the sea, and it was as well for him, she would probably have killed him on the spot as a punishment for nosiness.

'What will you do when the Emperor will be dead?' she asked suddenly, unable to stop herself.

'I'll try to forge a more brilliant situation for these lands. And you?'

'I'll probably go away from here.'

It was true. If she was to kill the emperor, she would go away, because StonePort would change and she didn't wanted to be there to see the changes. She wanted to live in the city she had adopted as her home, and StonePort without murder, misery and mist wouldn't be StonePort anymore. She would have to go away. Not in the GreenLands, certainly not. Her desire and main hope was to buy a ship with the reward, and become a pirate in the misty seas. That would really please her. A harsh and rash life of corsair, rivalry between the other pirates, loyalty to her crew, treasures to fight for, a whole life of commend, death, storms and wealth. This was her idea of luxury, and if ever she had loved the delicious life of a GreenLands' Landlord then she had forgotten all about it, or more likely had buried it away from her.

When they had finished eating, Thunderion passed her over a long, slender sword, in case of, and went to sleep. He didn't look like he was afraid that she would kill him, even if in the depths of his heart, he was. An excellent knight, talented and invincible in duels, he would not be able to resist a dagger in his back. He was the kind of man that loathed treachery; he and his family had always lived according to the _Hope and Honor_ rules. One of the main rules was 'Never strike in the back, Honor forbids it.' This was why he ought to hate the girl. But at eighteen, he mostly found it pitiful. He wondered why was she so wild against everyone, enemy at the point of taking assassination as her art, and locking herself all days long in this dark Alchematoria. Was there a man in her life? Or a dead relative? Or a woman rival? He couldn't guess, and her hostility increased his confusion; how could a girl like that could ever have any lover, family, or love at all? He finally fell asleep, thinking about this secret kid he ached with pity for.

Arach was lying on her back, her eyes focused over her, trying to pierce the fog to see the menacing starry azure sky. She could see nothing, and it exasperated her. The mist was something she loved very much, because of its invincibility. Whatever you did, you couldn't submit the mist to your desire; you could strike it with the sharpest blade, it would ignore you. You could curse it with the most terrible words; it would stay dumb to them. Even the Art of Potions hadn't found a way to chase it. Arach knew that in one of the Alchematoria's laboratory a master was looking for a way, but the only thing he had found was that it was easier to see through the mist with light. Something anybody would have found as easily as saying 'I want money.'

Arach's eyes, again, started to feel heavy, and she jerked up. She yawned, and sighed, and started to fumble in her pockets, looking for something to divert herself and give her something to think about. She found some empty bottles, bandages, a dead butterfly in a little glass box, a flask of strong cider, a string of safety pins, a stone someone had given her, and that was suppose to have unknown magical skills, a few little leathered books, a bunch of keys, a bouquet of dead leaves mixed with feathers, the long, black iron necklace hanged with a silver and ruby spider from the Spider's Web dynasty, several strange flowers, mushrooms, a matchbox full of matches and ladybugs, a quill and a bottle of ink, a tiny Thunderbolt Lantern and a star-and-moon silver and ruby brooch. Arach's first interest was in the bunch of keys. There were some old keys to houses she had had to snuggle in to do her dirty jobs, and that were of no use, there were some keys to secret doors in the Alchematoria, there was also the key to her bedroom in the shabby inn were she slept back at StonePort, some keys she didn't even know where they were coming from. Then she started to flick through the books: one was about magic spells and jinxes, but she hadn't study Mystics, and she was unable to read the symbols. One was about all the weapons that existed in the world; swords, axes, bows, crossbows, spears, spikes, arrows, sabers, bodkins, daggers, knifes, machetes, javelins, lances, stilettos, broadswords…All with drawings, explanations, techniques of use, a true, very useful encyclopedia. The third book was like the weapons', but about herbs, potions, cures, medicines, poisons, flowers, leaves, and all the botany things. The last one was a little book with all the maps, the armories of all the families, thousand of addresses, notes she had written all over the place; a mess, but a useful mess. Arach, after spending nearly a hour reading the books, looking at the pictures and writing notes with the quill, felt bored, and stuffed all of them back in some pocket or another. The she started to interest herself to moon-and-star brooch: she didn't know where she had found it, but it, really was a beautiful piece of art. Really beautifully carved, with a ruby shining at the center of the star, which was standing in the crescent, it seemed to glow in the mist. Arach sighed, and pulled it back in a pocket, and took something else out of it. She drew it higher, closer to her eyes. It was the Spider necklace. The spider was even more magnificent that the carvings of the brooch, and its eyes were of tiny ruby. The chain seemed rude in comparison of it, ornate with elegant but harsh spider-runes. Arach was irritated by this symbol of her noble rank; she stuffed the jewel back in her pocket, and crossed her arms over her chest, feeling annoyed, and cold and uncomfortable. She hadn't even had a night in StonePort, she had just drop by there and go back on her way that the destiny seemed to be pleased to make longer each time she thought she was at an end. It suddenly occurred to her that from the day she had met Frostrosé, she had not one time sleep alone in a bedroom. She had either sleep in the same room as Hawkke on the gleaming Stick , or in his castle, or in Drymarchon's bed, or in the same cabin as fifteen other sailors on the _Sea Demon_…And now, she was sitting in the middle of the night next to a man she hardly knew, and who was sleeping like a cat. She felt even more irritated, and turned obstinately her back on him and the fire, stuffing her shin in her arms on her knees, and loosing her eyes in the hazes.

She could feel she was slowly falling asleep, and couldn't do anything about it. The cold was entering each part of her thin body, and she was dazed by it, unable to fight it. It was when she heard the long, deep screams of wolfs, and their harsh, too close growls that she stepped into life again. Appearing in the little circle of light caused by the fire, three, four, five wolfs had appeared, looking hungrily at the two humans before them. Arach jumped on her feet, and grinning wildly, she brandished her abruptly unsheathed sword, her yell echoing all through the forest:

'Ah, finally some action!'

And she threw herself on the nearest wolf.

**Author's Exhausted After-Note: Oof, finally the end of this boring chapter. I think I am going to fall asleep for a good hundred years, and wait for some charming prince to come and kiss me awake. (I know, I know: the charming princes, like the handsome hunters, are all gone from earth but one can dream, can't one…) Just review. Even if you're choking over waves after waves of strangling yawns of boredom. For my sake :_dramatic sight of Me falling upon my knees and lifting hopeful, pleading eyes to the Reader_:**

**Post Memoris: just went to take a look at fanfic, and noticed that this damned web-site took my e-mail address off. We'll have to be cunning then, won't we? So, my e-mail address is: _sorrowandshadow_ got that? Then there is the and then there is Ok? So write at sorrowandshadow write! In the name of doom and Lady Darkstar, queen of the curses!**


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's Eternal Note: Hi guys, its ten p.m., and I think I'm going to throw myself on my bed with a good fat book to read before I fall asleep. A quick note to introduce this chapter, which I've just reread and found impeccable. I only wanted to say: read and review.**

**Chapter Sixteen**

**The White City**

When the fifth wolf was lying dead upon the humid floor, Thunderion turned toward Arach, who was kneeling on the floor, her head bent, with her hair masking her face like a curtain of black waters. He knelt next to her, and took her arm in his hands, examining her wound intently. It was dangerously deep and ugly.

'This wound is old!' he exclaimed, raising his eyes to her tortured face.

'I know…' she muttered.

'Why didn't you heal it?' he asked, astonished.

'Didn't have time…'

'With the state of this wound, you should already have been dead from loss of blood!'

'Someone helped me to bandage it,' said Arach, gritting her teeth, feeling more and more irritated.

Thunderion, after a quick glance at her convulsed face, fell silent. He reached out for something in a little bag hanging from his leather belt. A little pale blue bottle glowing weakly in the dark, hazy atmosphere, and a long, clean white bandage. He washed the wound, glancing from time to time to her deadly snowy face, poured three or four drops of the antidote on it, and bandage it gently.

'If you've got any other wound, you'd better told me. It would be a pity if you died…'

Reluctantly, she let him bandage her thigh, but when he was finish, she felt so good it angered her against herself. She stood up, and went to look for her sword, which was lying sticking up from one of the dark masses of the wolves' corpses. She picked it up with a hissing snarl, and kicked the wolf, liberating the blood-stained blade by the same occasion. It was still dark, but the first rays of lights were starting to chase the mists away from the forest, still further west. The trees seemed as menacing with some light as in the darkness, discovered Arach.

They set on without breakfast. As they were both use to very few food while on journeys, it didn't cause much trouble, and they started to ride. Ebony seemed strangely still, and the girl could feel his smooth black coat shudder under her spidery hand. At last, they penetrated the Light-Less Woods.

In the growing daylight, the forest drew itself neater and neater. The trees, very tall, very old, heavy, knotty or smooth, dark as ebony or light as chestnut, were standing like the pillars in a cathedral, holding up the glorious roof of savage verdure. On the floor, in the branches, or bursting from the trunks themselves grew wild flowers and mushrooms; the colors, as much as the perfumes, were different, and opposed; acrid or sweet, golden or silver, heavy or light, white or black, red or blue; all looking very beautiful and very lethal. The furtive shapes of the forest's animal fled from time to time from the corner of Arach and Thunderion's vision, and little cries, growls, howls, moans, screech or purrs could be heard continually, giving to the forest the look of a graveyard full of secret lives. The air itself felt heavy and damp and cold, and Arach felt dump and rigid on her saddle. She was listening hard for some noise announcing any other mortal animal, but nothing came, and she felt somehow disappointed. The journey went on grimly in the eerie forest, until Thunderion proposed a halt to have something to eat and to rest a little, so that they could go one and continue their way in the night. As the light faded slowly away and that the mist started to crawl on the damp, muddy floor, Arach noticed that the day and the night looked nearly quite the same in that ageless place. They set on a fire, tied the horses to some trees, and started eating the little food they had left. Thunderion looked rather anxious. He had apparently not predicted enough food for all the way to the next city, and it annoyed him. It was very well-known in the country that most of the peoples that ate from the fruits in the forest never lived for long after this, and to be able to go on without dying with starvation was something they needed greatly. Arach was careless. She would risk as easily as snapping her fingers to eat one of the alien berries, it wasn't a matter, she wasn't the kind of person who cared about life. She curled into a tight ball on to the cold, soft and damp floor and closed her eyes. She was tired, and soon she was slipping in a dreamless sleep, while Thunderion was sitting still, his eyes wide open in the growing mists, and his ornamented sword resting, drawn, on his lap.

Meanwhile, three lords in three castles in GreenLands were pacing up and down their chambers.

Araneus was smashing things at his passage, shouting, insulting and beating the unlucky servants that tried to talk to him, cursing under his breath, the anger and exasperation giving his old face a new expression, younger, and very alike from his daughter's.

Drymarchon was stroking his beardless shin as he walked up and down his chamber, his eyes narrowed, thinking fast, silent; and when a soldier went to tell him that Rattle had died, he threw him such a look of anger and disdain that the man didn't dare some in the room again.

Hawkke was biting his fist not to scream. He was throwing himself on the bed, his head in his pillow to try and smoother the yells that escaped his throat, then jumping back on his feet and smashing a bottle of strong wine on the floor.

The three of them had all their thoughts on one person: Arach. While she was killing wolves and boldly crossing the Light-Less Woods, she didn't think about those three men who were cursing her, and wanting her. Araneus wanted her because she was his daughter, the flesh of his flesh, the blood of his blood; Drymarchon wanted her because she was money to him and the thing he needed to put the hand on the colossal fortune and glorious name of the Spiders, and Hawkke wanted her body; her body and her heart, for himself.

At the same time in three different places, however, the three men took a resolution:

Hawkke dressed and took the first ship to StonePort, _Maristella_, Araneus called in his frightened messenger and sent him with a message to his daughter, which was somewhere in StonePort and to be find at any cost, and Drymarchon went in a mysterious inn he knew well, from where he sent three hunters in look for her, and with the mission to bring the girl alive against a very high reward.

The way through the woods went on for five days. The weather was as damp and cold as ever, and Thunderion's moral was starting to get lower and lower. His face, which had been clean and clear when they first set of from StonePort, was now pale and covered in whiskers; his normally carefully combed and shining blond hair was messy and dull, his eyes were lustreless and gloomy, and his clothes were no longer elegant nor clean.

'How do you came there if you didn't cross the Woods?' one night asked Arach as they were sitting silently in the threatening mist.

'I came from the sea,' he answered faintly.

'What! You're mad!'

'No, I wasn't. I was more likely mad to have come back by the forest.'

'You fatalist…' she muttered under her breath.

She didn't really care about being lost in the forest. The gloomy, dark atmosphere suited her rather well; and she would be able to be alone and at peace there, even if she wouldn't be able to gain money anymore. Her own look, however, was not reassuring. Her eyes were circled in dark grey, her face so pale and thin it seemed like a skull, her hair cutting so sharply black against white with her flesh that you could have cut yourself with the contrast. Her clothes were dirty, and started to stink, and her boots were so used she could feel the dampness of the floor under the flat of her feet.

However, even though this despairing looks, her eyes shone in a kind of dangerous, fanatical glare; so bright that it was nearly unnerving, almost childlike. And as he gazed at her at the light of the fire, Thunderion caught himself thinking that this little assassin was nothing, absolutely nothing, more than an exited little kid. And he was dragging her in the most dangerous mission anybody could have ever set her. Poor kiddo.

Five more days elapsed. Thunderion became more and more grim and sinister, while Arach absorbed the darkness and shadows, until she felt drunk fit to burst with its rich content. She felt good among the tall, thick, lethal looking trees, hidden in the soaking mists, fighting now and then against horrible animals, drenched with blood and sweat, alone in a world where the laws of nature had created the most handsome style of life she had ever imagine living with. But as it had to happen after walking so long in the same direction, they reached the end of the Light-Less Woods. It was with glee and a glitter of hope in his gloomy misery that Thunderion had first notice that the trees seemed to thin more and more, and he even renounced taking a break for the night and went on walking eagerly. When they stumbled out of the forest, the sun was slowly rising in the glittering pink and dazzling blue of the sky, light cascading over the glorious Imperial city.

Even though Arach hadn't a particular taste for light and beauty, she had to admit to herself that the city was beautiful like she had never seen anything being so beautiful. Castles, tall, pearly white towers were rising there smooth, pointed roofs to the sky, the eternal white of the city stained with the pink and gold of the sky, the narrow, smooth, stoned alleys full of busy looking, richly colored clothed peoples, princesses in their glorious carriages, knights on their splendid steeds, merchants, little servants, lords and ladies, a full life of richness and beauty separated from the black misery of StonePort and its surroundings by the lethal forest, who stood like a shield all around this city of purity and magnificence.

As they passed the tall arch of white marble that was the great door of the city, Arach saw the illumination of her companion's face; here he was in his element.

'I will take you directly to my castle, so that you can meet the members I appointed to help you and dress properly,' he told her as they rode in the crowd.

Arach nodded, and griping her horse's mane, she crouched over his neck, sitting slightly hunched over herself, shrinking under the pure light that hurt her. They rode for a few moments, people stepping away from their path. Apparently, Thunderion was very popular in this city, and the many curious glances Arach received achieved to put her in a bad mood.

'If only they'd mind their own business and keep their nose to the floor like in StonePort,' she said aloud.

Thunderion smiled.

'It is because of your dressing.'

'But they are much more outrageously dressed than me!' she exclaimed, angrily.

'Well, if you hadn't noticed, this is the city of light and color. So people dress lightly and colorfully, as the peoples in your port of Darkness and misery dress darkly and miserably.'

Arach remained silent under the clear logic, crouched over her steed, until finally they rode under a tall, beautifully carved arch, which led to the gardens of Thunderion's castle.

The only thing that you could tell to describe precisely the castle was that it was beautiful. Not in the dark beauty of most of the manors and castle in GreenLands, but clear and tall and white, with floating white flags that were all embroidered with a long thunder light wrapped with a plait of ribbons and white lilies.

As once as they had entered the widely opened doors Thunderion gave Arach over to an old maid, who took her up a long flight of white stairs, along a white and gold corridor, and in a dark blue room. The room was richly furnished with a four-posted bed with deep blue curtains and a white fur, shiny and discreet rose wood table, chairs and wardrobe, and three wide and smooth cream furs lying of the dark wooden floor. A delicate perfume of luxury and cleanliness was floating, and the most absolute silence was ruling. Covering entirely one of the walls was also a window hanged with rich dark blue curtains that were floating slightly under the breeze coming from outside.

Lilee, the old woman, who had a very dignified air of wisdom and scorn about her, took Arach at the end of the room, were a dark wooden-paneled door was standing behind thick velvet curtains. The other room was a bathroom like at Hawkke's Manor, but much more comfortable and luxurious. The walls were heavy with thick tapestries, and a marble basin full of steaming and perfumed water was standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by a pile of soft white towels, several bottles of perfumes and potions, combs of all sizes, and a velvet sofa on which a heap of clothes were waiting.

'You may get in and wash yourself. I will come when you will be finished to heal your wounds, perfume your body and comb your hair,' said Lilee, and she departed.

'Dream on,' snarled Arach under her breath.

The display of luxury was irritating her. She also felt she would have given anything to be back at Hawkke's castle. 'You'd better stop thinking about that else you'll become a human,' she told herself glumly as she threw her clothes across the room and stepped in the deliciously hot water.

The water was so good and agreeable that Arach felt like she would have been able to stay there for hours. But with her usual quickness and haughtiness, she just scrubbed her skin clean with a harsh piece of leather ripped from the breeches stolen from Hawkke, and then stepped of, and scrubbed her skin dry with one of the towels and then she glared at her rags and at the pile of clothes on the sofa. She sighed. She would have much rather stayed with her dirty rags, but at the same time she had to admit that Thunderion was right and that it was the fact that she was so darkly and unattractively clothed that every eyes turned on her. She turned her attention to the clothes. They had been, she immediately noticed, chosen very well. The under tunic was tight fitting, made of plain black satin, with a tight black corset, long, sleek black satin skirts and a tight, elegantly stern, fierce dark red velvet over-tunic. She pulled on all of those quickly and uncaringly, and then completed the all with the black leather belt and black silk gloves she had also been given. Her hair was soaking wet the back of her garments, but she didn't care very much and came out.

Of course, she had to receive a full inspection and condescending correction from Lilee before she could finally go downstairs and meet Thunderion in the majestic meeting-hall.

It was tall and slim, with an air of dark elegance and innate nobleness that she entered the vast circular room. All eyes, as she marched in with the air of a warrior queen, turned on her, and more than not gleamed with discreet approval. Thunderion, in clean dark azure clothes, waved to the chair next to his own, and she briskly went to sit down. Then, she looked around, and saw for the first time with whom she was going to work with.

**Author's Powerfully Weak After-Note: Here we go. This will be all for today I think. I'll do the assassination team tomorrow. I am nearly collapsing with tiredness. But you must admit that this chapter is beautiful. I, personally, love it. So, no threat, only a quiet plea: could you review, please-pretty-please?**


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's Energetic Note: Here I am, ladies and gentlemen, full fit to burst with energetic energy! This is my shortest chapter ever, but hell, it compensates for the lifetime-long chapter that's coming after. Well then, friends or foes, sit and back and enjoy this short little scrap of a chapter, and do Review. **

**Chapter Seventeen**

**Assassination Team**

Directly next to Thunderion, a tall, youthful man, with long brown hair and eyes of a grey puzzling; for they were both soft, and yet cold with intelligence. He was slim, with a clear air of elegance, and dressed in a pale blue tunic and white breeches, added with a dark fur cloak and tall, ornate boots.

'Lord Sylfaere,' Thunderion said, and the hazel-haired youth bowed with a polite grace to her, 'He will be the one to set the plans, he will do our calculation, and act as our brain.'

The next one was a small man, thin and slight of built, with an air constantly amused by the events and shiftily casual, and a sweeping grace of worrying cunning.

'Sthenn, Arch-Thief from the Bridges of Gloom, he will be the one to do the sneaking, and to provide us with information and advices.'

Sthenn bowed a slight, quick bow, with a graceful wipe of his dark silvery-cloud eyes upon her.

The next one was a woman; and even though Arach was not the kind to see beauty, what she saw was beyond all imagination: aged in the areas of twenty four-twenty five, she was tall, and slim, with curves to die for and a cascade of tumbling honey-amber hair falling in gleaming curls down her straight back. Her eyes were wide, of the purest, softest golden-nut, with a skin fine and smooth and full, colored like the palest, most delicate honey. Dressed in a silken overdress of pale golden color, she stood next to Sthenn, looking graceful, beautiful, gentle, and friendly, framed by the sunlight, an aura of gold molding her exquisite shape.

'Countess Eeliria of the Golden Sands of the South,' said Thunderion, 'She will draw the Prince to your dagger.'

Eeliria smiled a bright golden smile enlightened by the dazzling white of her perfect teeth, and gracefully curtseyed.

'And finally Double-Game. He is a close to the Prince. He will get us important and highly needed information. His name is behind a mask.'

He was very tall, cloaked in black, with a black scarf covering his face save form his eyes, which were bright greenblue like the southern sea, and intent upon her owns.

He stepped form his corner of shadows, and bowed, then stepped back. Thunderion, standing up and walking to Arach, said: 'Well, what think you of my crew?'

'He,' said Arach, pointed a white finger to Sylfaere, 'He will go very far. He,' she went on, pointing to Sthenn, 'he is clever—and trustworthy. She,' towards Eeliria, 'She is beautiful. And as for him—'

She stopped for a moment. Double-Game's eyes sparkled like aqua-fires.

'He is a traitor. He is ugly and untrustworthy. He is naked of honour. He is disloyal. He is disgusting.'

Her words surprised strongly, and all turned to see what the man would answer. He laughed, a clear, young laugh, and said, still draped in shadows:

'And she—she will go further than Sylfaere.'

He stepped slightly out of the corner, and went on:

'And what pushes you to talk so of me, who never even addressed you?'

'You are betraying your lord by being here. You should fall upon your blade.'

'And you are the one who is going to kill my lord.'

'With your help, you, whom the lord trusts.'

'The Prince is no lord.'

'He is your master.'

'And you are going to kill him.'

'I am an assassin. It is my art. You are his friend. You should be ashamed.'

Double-Game burst with laughers:

'Quick-silver, with a tongue sharper than the cold of Northern Winters. Thunderion, you got your hand on a dangerous treasure.'

The exchange had been fascinating. Eeliria, her large eyes narrowed to slits of sparkly gold, a smile stretching her enchanting lips as if she was enjoying a play, looked amused; Sthenn was tipping himself to and fro on his feet, snickering under his breath, approving. Sylfaere was intent, and curious. Thunderion congratulated himself for them all. His crew would shake the Empire out of its pedestal.

Silence fell, and Arach, shrugging her disdain, went to sit, gracelessly, heavily, on a couch. Eeliria sat next to her, and the men settled. The real conversation started:

'My friends,' Thunderion said solemnly, 'I have gathered you here for an honorable task that shall count as an act of bravery when it will be committed. We all know that your spirit, as we shall be planning our deed, will remain as pure as it is now, and in the same states of utter…'

'Spare us the crap,' Arach muttered under her breath—everyone heard her.

Eeliria, at her side, swiftly took out a white handkerchief and ducked, plunging in it, her shoulders shaking with laughter, Sthenn snickered a second time.

'When do you want the murder to take place?' said Thunderion, smiling to the assassin, and cutting short his annoying talk.

'Tomorrow,' said Arach.

Silence fell again, then Thunderion said:

'What say you of that, you others?'

'The girl if right,' said Sylfaere calmly, 'we cannot afford to wait. What must be done must be done. We should get into action as quick as possible, and be off with it as quick as possible.'

'Syll is right, me-Lord,' said Sthenn, 'We'd like to get on with it. It can't last longer how it is.'

'My three companions are right,' said Eeliria, shifting slightly, and wiping tears of laughter form her great hazel-gold eyes.

Her beauty, as Arach turned to listen to her, struck her again: so perfect, so attractive; the Prince stood no chance against her sweet charm. Nor, as it seemed, did Sylfaere.

'As they wish,' said Double-Game from his corner of shadows.

'May it be so. Here is the plan; tomorrow the action starts.'

**Author's Diplomatic After-Note: So? How does it look? You're not gonna get the assassination plan at any rate, mateys: the plan's mine, and you'll probably never know it—I am aware that many of you readers may be traitors. Never mind: what do you think about my assassination team? You know what, my favorite's Double-Game. I just love him! I thin he's ideal. I mean, he's the perfect traitor. And "Double-Game" for a traitor is superb. Ooh, I am such a genius! **

**(Post Memoris: I just wanted to tell you that Bob's gone on a trip to the Caribbean; that Madame E. Sharpe's locked in the attic, that Minotaur's gone for ever; that Trice Octari is back in jail, that Colonel Constantine's patrolling around the house, and that poet Amethyst is one of my only remaining guests, with this dear Ink—and I must admit those two aren't very annoying. They are quiet and make me look sometimes a little bit bizarre, but all in all, all's for the best. I am freeee :_golum-ic way of wailing Freee_:) **


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Morally and Physically Ill Note: Hello Fanny, good to see you again. Did you finally buy the goldfish? (Did I write that? No::_horrified gasp_: pretend you never read, right?)**

**Hi every one! Read on, Reader, but be careful: I won't be updating for a good little week, the time to write the next chapters and post them—so you'd better make this last. Never mind—please Review. I know it's been too long since I threatened you, so here you go, for good morals: Will you review, you scumbag! You churlish knave! You fish-face of a boor! Or I'll curse you to the seven hells, curse you to the eternal abysses were thee shalt burn infinitely till you write a review—niark niark niark. :_Machiavellian snigger_: **

**Chapter Eighteen**

**The Prince**

'This is stupid,' snarled Arach with fury, 'It is so _unnecessary_! You should be the only one going! I don't care one bit about the Prince! If I'm going to kill him!'

'Arach,' said Eeliria wearily, struggling to keep reasonable, 'you must see the Prince, so as to behold the foe you are facing. He is no ordinary man. He has power, and a lot of it. You must see him and feel the ground.'

'I ain't feeling no ground,' said Arach under her breath, and remained mutinously silent.

The coach, which was tall, and of rich perfumed wood, was ridden by a cheerful young man in blue and white livery. The horses were as white as snow in the morning of the winter solstice, and people made passage for it in the roads. Inside sat Arach the Assassin, Eeliria of the Golden Sands of the South, and Lord Sylfaere.

Eeliria was so beautiful this day, so perfect, it dazzled the eye just to look at her, and Sylfaere was very nearly entranced. She was dressed with a long white gown which made the golden of her skin stand out breathtakingly; and in her hair were mixed a tight net of white roses and ribbons; and a single, long, wild golden lock was falling down the right side of her perfect face. The gown had a low neck that gracefully bent to reveal the beginning of a maddening bosom, and the bodice was cut tight and elegant, rimmed with a pale gold satin ribbon; from it cascaded the long lace white skirt, which trailed on the floor, and opened to reveal now and then a leg as slender as a young sapling, long and golden, ended with divine sandaled feet.

Sylfaere, tall and all in glorious pale blue, was at a high level of handsomeness too, even if he didn't seem aware of it. His eyes, light hazel, rested heavily upon Eeliria's chest, were they seemed to lay dreams that would have made a maiden blush.

Arach had dressed all in black, red and silver—unconsciously bringing out the glorious colors of her house: her crimson satin corset was lightly tight, bound at the back with flowing ribbons of black satin: a high necked black bodice, covering up to her shin, and long sleeves that reached her knuckles ended the effect of pride and secrecy: a long black silken skirt, plain and perfect like a river of night, fell down to trail on the floor, and light dust-silver satin brodekins clad her feet. A delicate beltelet of black leather was tied loosely around her waist, dangling the two, long straps form the silver buckle down her hip. She hadn't fought against it, as she had against an opened skirt like Eeliria's. Her hair, finally, had been drawn up high behind her head, and clipped with a silver and ruby brooch, letting the locks fell wild and savage in a cascade of raven that fell to her thighs. Arach longed for her brown coat, breeches and tunic. But she remained sulkily silent.

When the coach finally pulled to a stop in front of the prince's magnificent castle, Arach had nearly fallen asleep. Now, she started up, as the coachman came to open the door. Sylfaere, splendidly svelte, jumped down, and held a hand for Eeliria, who lightly, infinitely gracefully, came down after him, and stepped away. Finally, Arach took his hand to stumble angrily on the floor. They all faced the stairs leading to the wide opened door of the palace, from which three persons had just come.

A guard, silent and unfathomable, dressed in the golden armor of the Empire, stood opposite a tall, malicious looking High-Councilor, framing the Emperor: he whom they called the Prince; himself, this figure of impossible hate—and love.

He was tall, and slim, but with the taut, muscled air of a born dancer-warrior. His hair was like a sweep of ink, long and silky, down his long, pale gaunt face. He was young, but the many pleasures and cruelty had brought both their imprints in his eyes, which were green like the darkest, murkiest emeralds. He looked impossibly dangerous, and indeed, incredibly powerful. He was dressed in slight black armor, with a black velvet cloak draped around him like a black mist, and from his boots to the neck of his tunic, he was clad uniquely in glorious black. Only a single, tiny ruby gleamed at the top of his right temple, incrusted in the tight circle of black steel that bound his lofty marble forehead. His lips, under a fine white nose, were straight and set in an unfathomable line. Only the look of rapt avidity and amused cruelty lit his face, with the dark green of his frightening eyes.

'Welcome back among us, Lord Sylfaere,' said the High-Councilor, 'your celerity to answer the invitation was delighting, and pleased the Prince.'

'I am honored, my Lord,' said Sylfaere, addressing the Prince as if it had been him that had talked.

Arach, at such ridiculousness, sniggered under her breath.

The Prince's eyes, like arrows of sharp emerald, slashed upon her, and pierced through to her soul. She paled, and silenced.

'Who are those two young Ladies you bring with you, Sylfaere?' inquired dignifiedly the High-Councilor.

'Countess Eeliria of the Golden Sands of the South, and Lady Arachna of the Tenebries: may the knowledge please your Majesty,' said Sylfaere, bowing.

'It does,' said the Prince in a dangerous way. His voice, for the first time Arach heard him talk, was surprisingly young, yet filled with a clear, lethal melody: a voice dangerous and subtle. Then, 'My lady, will you make me the pleasure to take my arm.'

It was ravaging, it was ugly, it was ironical—with a simple snigger, Arach had brought upon herself his attention. She screamed at her own self for having laughed: hated this tong of hers that couldn't hold itself.

Sylfaere, throwing a warning look at Arach, took thunderstruck-Eeliria's arm, and the assassin found herself with no choice but to go. Walking briskly and moodily, she went and stuck her hand unceremoniously over the Prince's. He took it in his gloved fingers, and deposed it lightly upon his elbow. Then they all turned and went in.

The palace was of rare richness: walls entirely of black marble were carved with hundred of images more beautiful and perfect one than another. Black carpets of elegant velvet lay upon the floor, among the valueless ornaments, vases and furniture. Servants, in emerald greens, and immensely rich guests filled the place, yet the large windows that were present everywhere let in velvety light and soft freshness. So much elegance and wealth, after having lived for so long at StonePort, disgusted Arach, and her face, as they walked through corridors after corridors to the room were the prince would entertain them, was a mask of white disdain and haughtiness. She now understood why Thunderion couldn't bear the situation longer: such beauty and luxury when so many people ate their scrap of bread from the blood on their hands was sickening. Arach decided that she hated the Emperor.

When they finally settled down, it was in a room high up in the splendid castle: windows, rising up, panel-less, at north, south, east and west let in the warm sunlight upon the white rushes on the smooth shining floor. Couches, scattered with thick cushions of rich velvets, lay around the room, among several small tables supporting ribboned baskets of fruits, and piles of thick volumes. A dog, with long, luxuriant white and black fur, dozed majestically in a large cushion on the floor.

'I bid you to sit down,' said the High-Councilor.

'As you wish, we may,' replied smoothly Sylfaere.

He sat, and then Eeliria, smiling shyly at the prince, sat next to him, and then the High-Councilor, reverently. The guard had remained outside the door. Still standing were Arach and the prince. He let go of her hand, and without looking at her: 'I wish you would sit down.'

She went to a couch farther from the group, and closer to the window, so that she plunged in comfortable shadows, and briskly plonked down upon it. The Prince, ignoring her, gracefully sat, and as Arach observed him reproachfully, she saw the way he sat: taut, slightly on edge: he was a man expecting an attack at every second, no rest for him, no peace. Only scraps of pleasure he tore from his victims and his cruel passion for life were left for him. Wretched man.

'Well then,' said the Prince, 'What will you tell us about your companion, Sylfaere?'

'Which one?' said Sylfaere.

'Your charming friend of the Golden Sands,' said the Prince in a self-satisfied way.

'Ah, Eeliria!' said Sylfaere, masking his air of relief under an affectionate tone, 'I met her last time I visited the Southern isles: I proposed her to come and visit our White City, which she had never seen.'

'I had, of course, heard about it,' said Eeliria sweetly, 'I said this, my Lord, so that you may be satisfied so as the renown your city has.'

'You do solace us, Countess,' said the High Councilor.

The conversation, to Arach's eyes, was senseless, dull, lacking any possible interest. The words fell empty and lusterless from the lips; replies mostly done by Sylfaere, Eeliria and the High-Councilor were trite to weep. Arach slowly, sank into dark daydream: ah, if she still had those two ships! She would by now have been richer than the richest pirate: she wouldn't be here, running after one thousand Imperials, listening to the boring discussion of a seductress, her sheep, and a councilor that took himself from someone else's tong. As she sank deeper back in her cushions, Arach's thoughts became more and more fantastic and grudging, until finally, what had to happen happened; and she heavily fell asleep among her dreams.

'All the time we were dining, Lady Arachna slept. My, she must be overly tired. Send for a servant to see the guests to their apartments.'

Arach started up, blinking at the dazzling light. The windows at each sides of the room light in the fresh breeze of the night, as form outside glittered the thousands of tiny splinters of diamonds that were the stars. A bright white lamp, falling heavily from the ceiling, filled the room with the blinding clarity. And at the door, the High-Councilor next to Sylfaere and Eeliria, stared at her with wide eyes.

'Stop staring!' she spat at them, standing up, and feeling rusty.

The two servants arrived as she stepped staggeringly out of the room. They were two young women dressed in green, and looking like war-prisoners. The High-Councilor, after a cold glance at Arach, bid them farewell for the night from the Prince, and withdrew. The five of them, Eeliria, Arach, Sylfaere and the two servant women that guided them through the corridors to their chamber, walked silently. Finally, however, Sylfaere said: 'You can retire, we know our apartments.'

The two women withdrew quickly, without a word, and Sylfaere immediately turned towards his two companions:

'Listen, Arach. Eeliria needs more time to take the Prince in her bed to your dagger. We need to push the date back, for one day. Tomorrow evening may do. By Ylvea-Nae and her Battalion of Blue Angels, he is resistant. Not to fall under your charm…'

He bent down to kiss Eeliria fondly on the forehead.

'Your chamber is located at the end of this corridor, up a flight of stairs at the right next to a green dragon-vase, and through the last door of the last corridor. Do you think you can go by yourself?'

'Say it that you want to be far from me to attend to your dirty business,' said spitefully Arach, walking away as Eeliria shifted uneasily next to Sylfaere.

She walked briskly, down the long corridor then up the stairs, and just as she emerged from their gloomy darkness, she felt a hand, gloved in silk, grab her arm and pull her in a dark corner. The corridor was silent, empty, plunged in darkness. Still she did not cry out.

'Did you think you could act this way without paying the consequences?' asked a cold, exultant voice in her ear.

'Only a laugh,' she whispered.

'A disdainful, insulting snigger. Then the spit of your unveiled boredom, then your carelessness. You are new at court, to act this way.'

'I wouldn't be here if I had the choice, you can believe this,' she said with barely stifled wrath.

'But you are nonetheless.'

'I am. And so what?'

'And so—'

Hard like a blade falling down upon its victim's neck, he crushed his lips to hers. Yet it wasn't a kiss. It was something biting, something cruel, something cold and hard. He did it to prove her he was stronger, to impose his will to hers. He did this to punish and dominate her.

She harshly pulled back, wiping her mouth with her sleeve.

'Touch me again and I'll kill you.'

'Will you?'

He laughed a clear, young laugh full of innate power and smugness. Then he grasped her arm, and pulling her hard to him, he clasped a hand behind her neck, took her face to his, and again hit her of his lips. The kiss was bruising, crushing her lips; without hesitating, she brought up an arm and slapped him across the face with all her might.

'How foolhardy _that_ was,' he idly snickered against her lips.

And his mouth went back upon hers, bruising harder, full of hate, full of disdain. She raised her hand a second time, and hit him a second time. This time, he wrenched her away from him by the hair, and himself slapped her, the blow sending her against a wall, against which she slipped, falling down on the floor. He came, and kicked her hard. She remained on the floor, looking up at him, keeping her breath steady, and not even bothering to take away the hair form her face.

'Now, I will have to teach you obedience, and docility.'

He came up, bowed to her in a court, gallant way, and offered her his hand. She slammed her hand in it, and pulling it, she stood up heavily. He smiled, took out from a pocket a black silken handkerchief, and wiped the dust form her hand, then bent, his silky black hair brushing her cheek, and kissed her fingers.

'You have fire. It is well. But your flame will have to be lowered. You hurt.'

He gently took her fingers to his cheek, which was, even in the near-total darkness, red with the trace of her hand, and then he started walking, taking her with him, ignoring her furious struggle. Through a door hidden under a tapestry, up a narrow flight of stairs, down a small corridor. Up several other staircases and corridors, until they reached a heavy ebony door. He pulled it brusquely open, and stepped in, pushing her before him, and a wolf's smile stretching over his thin straight lips.

The room was vast, and black. The curtains, screening all light form the windows, were black; the bed-covers and blankets were black, the rushes were black, the ebony of the bed was black, the furniture was black. And the elaborate lamp in wish a bright, frightening fire shone, was of black metal. The bed, in the middle of the black room, lay massif and powerfully attractive and comfortable in its darkness.

Arach, horrified, sharply took her hand away form the Prince's.

'You are so sly.'

'I am a prince.'

He took back her hand in his, but as quick as silver, she stepped away from his hold. He grinned a dangerous twisted grin, and stepped after her, and she stepped farther back. Around the bed he chased her, until finally she reached the door again. She dashed briskly for it, wrenched it open, and threw herself outside, shutting it behind her. Then she tore in a run, away form the chamber.

His footsteps were quick behind her—quicker than hers, and she abruptly stopped. He crashed into her, and both fell, but as she was lighter, she shot up again, and ran for it. He, malicious, sly, grabbed a knee. Violently, she tripped forward and fell down hardly on her knees and hands, the breath knocked brutally out of her.

'You run away from my bed, don't you, pale one?'

He leapt upon her, pinning her down, and bringing up her arms over her head. His face, so beautiful in its feline thinness, was so close from her that she could feel his soft, fresh breath over her skin, tickling her cheek sweetly.

'Why me? Why not Eeliria?' she whispered, her body shuddering without she could stop it at the feeling of his own so close, so overpowering.

'She is empty. You, with your disdain, your impoliteness and coarseness, you have a pure pale skin. You have honor; you protect yourself against spots of dirt. She, she is filthy. She gives away her body. Do not ask me why. You know I am worth better.'

'You are worth nothing.'

The punishment came as a kiss. Hard and cold, bruising and demanding, his lips hit hers. Maintaining her arms over her head with one hand, he brought down the second one, and brushed it across the velvet of her dress's neck.

'I wonder what you hide under such high a neck…'

'Don't even think about it!'

Savagely, with all the force she could muster, she freed her hands, and pulled him away. Then she scrambled to her feet, trembling, and took up her feet to run; but as before, he grabbed a knee, and back she fell on the floor. Like a tiger, he leapt upon her, and then, crushing her hands with his to the hard stone ground, he growled in a savagely furious way:

'You weary me. Now chose: my bed, or the dungeons?'

'The dungeons! Anything, as long as far from your hideous person!'

The slap came hard, so hard it made her ears ring. He jumped on his feet, and when she did the same, grabbing his arm for support then releasing it as if it had burned her, he slapped her again, the blow sending her hard back on the floor. There, he roughly, cruelly kicked her, then kicked her again, then punched her. She, without a sound, stood up again, bruised all over her small thin body, aching as she had never done before.

He slapped her again, but she stood her ground. Quickly, he took her back against his strong, carven chest, and pressing her to his heart, he murmured in the inky waves of her hair. 'My bed, or the dungeons?'

'The dungeons.'

She flinched as she said so, waiting for the blow to come, but it did not. He merely sighed, and kissing her fingers, he said:

'You will come into my bed, willing or not. In the dungeons, you shall not long last. It will be you who shall take me to your heart. Now, to the dungeons.'

He led her down, away from the cursed chamber, and she sighed with relief, nearly lying over him.

'Do not think you have victory. After less than a month in my dungeons, you will crave for my arms.'

'Dream on,' she said under her breath.

He heard her. His hearing was keen, and he was a piercing man, with a spirit as quick as his ear. But he said nothing. They went on walking down the corridors, and finally they reached a stage when at each staircase they climbed down it grew colder. And then, a pitch-black corridor, with small traps of iron on the floor, with handles to pull them up and dark walls surrounding them.

The Prince smiled, and went to pull up a trap, pushing Arach before him.

'Look down,' he said.

She didn't. Without a word, he pushed her hard on her knees, and taking a handful of raven hair at the back of her head, he bent her to look. And she looked, as she had no choice. The room below was extremely small, the size of a big cupboard. No bench, not even one scrap of cloth furnished it, a simple window, square and the size of a large book, was barred with iron and let in the night's cold air. The Prince, looking down, smiled, and pulled Arach away, by her hair, then up on her feet.

'Now: my bed, or the dungeon?'

'The dungeon. The hell with you.'

He violently pushed her in the hole, and shut the trap behind her. She heard him slipping a metal bar through the two arches at each side of the panel, preventing the trap form being lifted from the inside. She sat down heavily, laying her back against the icy wall. The cell was silent, and there at least she could think in peace. In peace wasn't the word: she was tormented, she ached, she felt hate and sorrow course through her body like charges of devastating, burning power. Thinking about all she hated and loved, thinking about Snakehiss, and her father, about Hawkke and the Alchematoria, thinking about Thunderion, and the Prince, and her own wretchedness, Arach finally fell asleep, her body snuggled against the wall, which was as hard and cold as her heart felt.

**Author's Weeping and Whipping After-Note: Dear reader. So, after the Charming Prince, the Half-Blood Prince, and other various types of princes, what do you think about _my_ Prince? I, personally, _love_ him. Otherwise, I hope you aren't too choked by so much violence—sorry, but it is how it ought to be and :_wise finger raised and old, sage voice_: know that the world is indeed filled with misery and violence, my child (well, at least I didn't tell you as my mother once told me: "we don't want you to watch violence either at the TV, on internet or by the window"…)**

**Never mind. This chapter is _ab-so-lu-te-ly su-pre-me_, and I think it is my Very Best so far. However, my opinion counts for onions (opinion, onion—get it? Oh, never mind.) So review. Please Review, and tell what you think about this all. Please do review. Do. Do. Or e-mail me if you prefer or else… **


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's Fast and Furious Note: More violence up for this chapter—brace yourself. By the way, yesterday as I lay under the apple tree attempting a suicide (of course an apple would kill me if it fell on my head, you silly!) I thought: oh my god, bakers are like postmen, all criminal in disguise. I shared my horrified discovery with my family, but I can't say they were very understanding. Never mind. Just think about it, and read this horrendously horrible chapter and review. **

**Chapter Nineteen**

**Sage**

It was hunger, throbbing through her whole body, that woke her up. She opened her eyes, and looked out at the window: the sky was blue, but the window pierced through a wall not reached by the sun. It was cool in the cell, and she was hungry. She had not eaten for now one whole day. She shivered, and shivered again. It was cold. And getting colder. At StonePort, there weren't really seasons: only mist and cold. But when she had traveled to GreenLands, it had been summer. And now, autumn was coming, bringing upon the white city its armies of golds and fawns, and breathing its fresh, chilling breath. When the winter would come, Arach realized with a shudder, she would suffer. She understood what the Prince had meant when he told her she wouldn't last in his dungeons. Arach snuggled in a corner, shuddering and shuddering again. She shut her eyes, and yet she wasn't tired. All her days from this instant would be spent thinking, doing nothing, she, who hated so much idleness.

At least, she was in a dungeon. Arach, suddenly, incongruously, thought about Roseeh. Roseeh kept her inn, huddled in StonePort, and she would never suffer what Arach was suffering, not one hundredth of what she had suffered. Arach felt miserable.

Three days passed, slow, interminable. And Arach each day, lost weigh, and colors. The cold was growing, and her hunger was so unbearable she started eating shreds of her own skirt. Her face, already so white and thin, grew whiter and thinner, if possible. Her hair seemed so black the contrast was startling, and her eyes, once narrow and glittery, were left lusterless, and wide as endless pits of black misery. She shivered and shuddered all day, between fitful scraps of sleep. She felt she didn't want to live anymore. The hunger, each single second she was conscious, tortured her body; and she was left alone, tormented in her coldness and hunger, her teeth shattering against each other as under her very eyes the Light-Less Forest grew golden and red, and the days shorter. Arach ached and suffered.

The fourth day, as she watched the sky darken as the sun set, her heavy eyes looking without seeing them at the pale blue turning from golden-amethyst to starry azure, she heard a noise from over her; slowly, she raised her half-shut eyes, shivering again as a hurl of wind came to chill her, her teeth clattering without her being able to do anything about it. The trap-door, opened, and an arm, clad in a silver gauntlet stretched in, grabbed her own arm, and dragged her up. She rose, scrambling up, so thin, so frail he could nearly carry her with the force of a single arm; and beheld a young guardsman. He looked so blank, so unfathomable she turned her look away immediately, looking around: she couldn't see anything, it was too dark. And cold, oh so cold. Shivering, shuddering, trembling all over her body, her teeth shaking against each other, she brushed her upper arms with her hands. The guardsman, trailing her behind him without a word, took her away from the dungeon room, and climbed a long series of stairs. Arach, behind him, dragged and staggered, tripping over herself. She suddenly asked, in a barely audible whisper: 'Where are you taking me?'

The man didn't answer.

'I know you heard me,' she whispered again.

Still he was mute, and went on taking her up stairs and narrow corridors, holding her by the arm. Finally he stopped before a tall, narrow black door, opened the panel, and withdrew, leaving her behind without a word.

Arach felt a sudden wave of warmth bursting from the threshold. She shivered as she felt the warmth that was so close, and yet fought with each single tiny bit of strength she could muster. Oh, she would die before entering the room.

And she went in.

It was a small, circular room, with walls entirely covered in bookcases, which rose to lose themselves in the darkness of the invisibly high ceiling. In a great, large fireplace, not far from the door, a roaring fire crackled and burned, sending the flaming light all over the room. The furniture was simple, rich, comfortable: luxurious rushes on the floor, two leather armchair scattered with fat cushions, a huge desk with towers of stacked parchments rising on it, and a straight backed chair behind it. And on the chair, his intensely beautiful face concentrated and tense, the Emperor sat, writing with a long, curly phoenix feather. When she came in, hesitant, shivering, blinking in the light, he raised his head.

When he saw her, his eyes widened in horror, and he paled, and rose from his chair so briskly it fell back. He contoured his desk, and stood, immobile, his glittery emerald eyes wide in utter shock, mortified.

'Oh! my love, what did I do?' he whispered faintly.

And he stretched out his arms, without moving, his face and eyes filled with sorrow and longing. And Arach, as much as she hated him and herself for this, ran to him, and hugged her skeletal, aching body to his own, finely muscled one.

'Oh! my love, what did I do?' he reiterated.

He hugged her against his heart, hard, and yet infinitely, unbearably afraid that she may vanish, so thin, so ethereal she looked. He caressed her mane of raven hair, murmuring in her cheek: 'Oh what did I do? Oh what did I do?'

He suffered, she could feel it, and she suffered. She hadn't been able to resist him, and when she fell in his arms, it was pleasure, contentment, and sorrow; no more hate and the desire to kill. Oh no; a stab to her honour: she would not be able to kill him.

He ordered food to be brought up, and helped her eat; she was nearly too weak to be able to raise a spoon to her mouth. She ate, nearly dying over the impossibly good feeling of the hot, fluid, creamy soup down her throat; the tearing burn of wine, other equally good sensations as she swallowed her food. When she was finished, he took her gently to a deep easy-chair next to the roaring fireplace, and wrapped a blanket around her frail shoulders, hugging her against his chest and sighing in her hair.

'Did you change your mind?' he asked, nearly inaudibly.

'No.'

He did nothing, just gripped her harder against his heart. Then he said:

'You will have to go back to the dungeons.'

'Do your worst,' she whispered.

Which he did.

If she had thought that those four first days she had suffered, it was nothing compared to what he made her suffer after the evening. He had spent it with her gathered to her chest, and had retained her there till deep in the night, and asked her one last time if she held on. She had told him she did, and he had called his guard to take her back to her dungeon.

There, she stayed for two more days, shivering in the cold, without eating once. At night fall the second day, the guard came back to take her out of the tiny chamber of pain, and took her up, in a different room—the Prince's bedchamber. Arach staggered on the threshold, tears running down her emaciated face, saying nothing, just leaning against the door-frame, sighing, her legs barely supporting her faded body. He was waiting for her, leaning at a window, and when he turned, it was cold eyes that fell upon her miserable body. Turning around, yet not really advancing toward her, he said evenly:

'Have you changed your mind, opaline?'

'N-no,' she said, her voice so hoarse he barely heard her.

He beat her.

He was good at it: he slapped her until she fell, and when she was on the floor he kicked her, hard, viciously, all over her body, especially in the chest. He kicked her until she reached the wall, against which he slammed her with a kick that knocked the breath brutally out of her. She gasped; scrambled to her knees, fell over so that she was on all four on the floor, her head bent, her hair trailing on the floor like a pool of raven silk, and started coughed, so hard she coughed blood. Then she fell back, unable to stand up again, unable to hold her own body—to control her own muscles. She just lay sprawled on the floor, looking up at him with glazed eyes.

He knelt beside her, and picked her up, gathering her against him and then lifting her effortlessly; she was so thin she weighted like a child in his arms, as he carried her towards the large dark bed, on which he gingerly lay her down.

'No,' she whispered.

She rolled over, falling on the floor, and clutching the covers to haul herself up; he didn't let her time, he said softly:

'You are killing yourself by being stubborn.'

'Never mind,' she said in her low, torn voice, 'I'll never give you what you want. I'd rather die.'

'This,' he said serenely, 'is what you are going to do.'

This night, she spent huddled in a cold corner, as he lay down in his bed, turning his back towards her. She noticed he slept with his slight armor on, and that there was a long dagger under his pillows. She shut her eyes, and tried to sleep, but her mind concentrated on her pain: she ached all over: her head, her eyes, her neck, her chest, her heart, her stomach, her arms and hands, her legs; and her soul. She felt burning, the pain like thousand of tiny white-hot needles piercing each single atom of her flesh and devouring her mind. She finally fell asleep, exhausted, unable to hold on any longer.

He kept her in his rooms after this: he left her alone most of the morning and noon, but towards the end of the day he came back, and would ask her if she had changed her mind—inevitably, she would say no, inevitably, he would beat her. He would beat her until she was breathless and immobile, unable to move, and then he would pick her up, and kiss her, on her ruby lips, or in her frail neck, from which the dress had been torn. He would carry her to the bed, lay her there, and let sleep alone when he was in a relatively good mood, or toss her back to the floor when he was angry.

One day, he beat her so hard, so long, so cruelly, mercilessly she finally collapsed under the blows; she lost consciousness. She woke up five hours later, to find herself alone, on the floor, in a pool of blood. She coughed out even more blood, splashing her dress with the hot red liquid, and tried to move away, but she couldn't control her body, she was paralyzed. She just lay there, her body not feeling any more, deliciously numb. And as Arach closed her bruised eyes, she thought: I want to die. Make me die, I beg you, I want to die. She nearly fell unconscious again, when the door briskly opened. Her eyes snapped open, and she struggled to scramble up, each movement a sharp blade in her body as she gathered herself on her knees to look up, through falling strands of silky black.

The Prince had just entered, followed by a young man about his age: the man was taller than the Prince, with a fit, slender frame, a pale face, silky silver-blond hair that fell down to his shoulders like mercury. He was dressed all in deep azure, with a slender silver dagger at his hip, and white gloves at his hands. His eyes were green-blue, like aqua-marinas, and scintillated bright and unreadable.

'Double-Game,' thought Arach, a grudging feeling of admiration rising to her dazed head.

'Here you go,' the Prince told his companion, gesturing wearily at her, 'I have been beating her for now eight days; with no results. What think you, Sage?'

Arach looked up at Sage, challenging him with her dark, bruised eyes, yet what she saw made her feel uncertain and slightly frightened; it was the ephemeral shadow of pity and horror, quickly drawn aside behind a misty curtain of blankness. He said, in his young, slow voice:

'Is she badly hurt?'

'She can barely stand up,' said the Prince, with mingled self-satisfaction and sorrow.

He strode up to her, and she instinctively curled into a protective ball; but he took her sharp elbows, and helped her to her feet, supporting her as she staggered up, her legs unable to hold her, her head spinning. She grasped his arm, seized by a tearing fit of cough; ducking her head, she coughed in her sleeve, drenching it with scarlet, burning blood. She gasped in a raucous scrap of breath, and tightened her hold on the Prince's arm not to collapse back to the hard floor.

'She is coughing blood. A few hours ago, she lost consciousness. She hasn't eaten for now four days; barely slept.'

'And she is still stubborn…'

'As much as the first day.'

The Prince grabbed Arach against him and hugged her fiercely to his heart. When he released her, she sank heavily on to the floor, off-balanced, and immediately tried to stand up again, but could not. She ragingly glared up at Sage's impassive, beautiful face, daring him to mock her pitiful state.

'You should get a healer. She is going to die,' said Sage.

'Yes!' gasped out Arach, hatefully, grabbing the Prince's sleeve and hauling herself painfully up, 'Yes! Let me die and be done with it!'

The Prince tossed her back on the floor, on which she brutally fell back, and strode out of the chamber.

'I am getting Tear,' he called back to his friend, 'look after her for me.'

Sage came up to kneel beside Arach, but she dragged herself away:

'Don't you dare touch me!' she cried, her voice ragged, hoarse, filled with hatred.

He ignored her; picked her delicately up in his arms, and carried her to the bed, where he laid her, carefully, gently. He then slowly undid her corset laces, opened it, and with his silver dagger, he cut open her torn bodice, pulling it off her even as she rasped out:

'Don't you dare! Don't you dare!'

He tossed the ripped, blood-soaked cloth away from them, and tenderly pulled his hands over her tear-filled eyes:

'You shouldn't have seen all this,' he whispered sadly.

'Don't touch me!' gasped Arach, trying to remove his hands from her eyes, 'I'll tell him!'

'What use would it be? He trusts me with his life. You wouldn't be able even to tell him I was with Thunderion.'

'Oh! Oh!' choked Arach, lying her hands still on his, 'Oh, I hate you! I hate you!'

'Me, or him more?'

'You! I hate you! Double-Game, ha!'

'You hate Double-Game, but you will never be able to hate Sage,' he murmured.

He removed his hands from her eyes, lowering them down over her twisted crimson lips, then in her slender white neck.

'Don't touch me!' she wailed, her voice breaking at the end, trying to catch and tear away his gentle hands. Sage smiled a sad smile at her, bent, kissing the corner of her mouth, and stood up, as she struggled to sit, sobbing with rage and the pain coursing through her bruised limbs. He stepped away, and behind them the door burst open, the Prince dashing in followed by an old man clad in flowing white robes, with a braid of colored silk around his wrinkled forehead.

'Oh,' said the old healer blankly, as he stared down at Arach.

She brought up her hands over her silken chemise, weeping with fury, when she saw the Prince's emerald eye upon her.

'She has been badly hurt, my Lord,' said the healer, Tear, 'I have never seen someone that badly beaten.'

'I want to die! Don't touch me!' howled Arach, dragging herself away form the healer as much as she could, and stumbling back in the pillows.

'She doesn't wish to be healed,' said Tear, turning towards the Emperor, 'I cannot give her a health she does not desire.'

'I do not care about this,' said the Prince, his voice low and dangerous, 'heal her.'

'You are making a mistake,' said the old man, boldly and sadly.

'If you weren't a healer, old man, I shall have slit your throat open and force you to drink form your own blood,' said the Prince.

**Author's Pessimistic After-Note: Here we go. Another chapter I've just finished. You must admit that you probably rarely read something as horrifyingly gore as this. I bet you must be hating our Prince, now, mustn't you? Well, review, and tell me about him, and also, mind this, it's important for me, about Sage, aka Double-Game. Oh, and I just wanted to tell: I won't send the next chapter till I've received at least three reviews. Aha, I am so hellishly clever, niark niark niark…**


	20. Chapter 20

**Author's Tragically Thick Note: Hem Hem. Well. Here is the next chapter. I still don't get enough reviews though. I should have dropped everything and gone away to die, but, well, I just can't resist giving you my twentieth chapter. So, pur-lease, make and effort and Review!**

**Chapter Twenty**

**Volte-face**

Beneath the old man's wrinkled, gentle hands, Arach's body softened, and her mind sank into deep, comfortable shadows. Summoning his own will powers, the healer traced her bruises, and slowly, gently rubbed them off; it needed more power than usual, because the bruises were so horrible, and also because she didn't put any will in what he was doing. Healing her against her wish was a horrifyingly terrible thing to do, and he knew it. He looked down at the small, pale face, with the shut eyes, and the sunken cheeks that formed a sharp white angle against the dark veil of her hair, the ruby lips curved as if they would never smile again and the dry faded skin; the child was already half dead.

The Healer summoned even more power, feeling it pour down his fingers, and finished healing the inner wounds, and then he started working at all the physic damage: cuts ran all over her arms, throat and face and she was black and blue with brutal bruises. He traced each single one of them, and slowly rubbed them off, until once again, her skin was smooth and as white as immaculate snow, unblemished by any scar or mark. He then cured the hunger, which devoured her form the inside, and the heart-chilling cold; painfully, slowly pouring down heat and energy into her numb limbs, until her entire body was satiated with it. Then, he jerked his hands abruptly up, breaking all contacts with her with a feeling of relief and weary satisfaction; he had healed her.

When Arach woke up, she was alone in near-total darkness, lying on a deep, comfortable mattress, her head sinking back in clean, perfumed cushions, blankets covering her body and keeping it deliciously warm. She did not move at first, content only to feel the liquid warmth flooding through her limbs, softening them and making them feel exquisitely heavy and numb. Finally, she sat up, straightening slowly, and marveling with a childish joy at the fact that she could do so without any effort. She raised an arm, so that the long, wide sleeves of the dress she was wearing slipped down to the crook of her elbow, and peered closely at the skin, dim white in the darkness, and unblemished by any bruise. It was then that she remembered: Sage, the Prince, and the Healer.

Arach quickly tossed back the covers from her, and threw her legs off the bed on to the rush-covered floor; thinking as quickly as she could through the thick mist of her awakening mind: if she was healed, then she could use her strength to escape. This reasoning was plain and logic enough. She hastily stood up, and looked down at herself, her eyes slowly getting used to the gloom: she was dressed in a long, black dress, with a skirt that trailed to the floor, long sleeves down to her knuckles and a loose bodice. She had a comfortably tight chemise underneath, but nothing else, and it was cold—but for now, her main objective was to find a weapon. Thinking quick again and summoning her latest memories, she lunged for the pillows, and threw them all away: and a smirk stretched her lips, for sure enough, there it was: the long, pale blade glinting like ice-metal in the darkness. Seizing the cold handle in her hand, she clutched it, and slammed her fist to her heart; it had been so long sine she'd hold a dagger in her hand, and it felt so delicious now, to have this cold hilt so securely pressed in her palm.

Clutching it so hard her knuckles went white beneath her long sleeves, Arach slowly made her way to the door, and opened it, little by little, gingerly. The corridor was empty. Arach, flinging caution over her shoulder, picked up her skirt with her free hand, raised the one with the blade higher, and ran down the empty, dark passage. As she turned a corner at full speed, however, she crashed against a tall, solid body. She quickly leapt back, and raised the dagger high. The Prince, clad as usual in black and his slight armor, with his beautiful eyes scintillating like lethal emeralds, smiled down at her a smile that glimmered dangerously in the darkness.

'Ah, the assassin holding up her victim's dagger against her victim,' he said gently, lazy laughter in his young voice.

'He told you, didn't he?' spat Arach, stepping back even though she was the one holding a weapon, 'he told you.'

'Sage?' said the Prince, his smile deepening, widening gleefully.

'Double-Game!' Arach sneered disgustedly.

'Ah, of course, you know him by this name. He is clever. Far too clever for his very own good—'

'But you trust him! What if he'd betrayed you! You shouldn't have trusted him! You should have—'

Arach suddenly stopped; as the Prince's smile softened, and he leaned his head on one side, staring down at her.

'I tortured you for days, I starved you, locked you up, beat you to unconsciousness, and you reproach me to be careful enough of my own security?'

'No! that's not what I meant!' Arach said hastily, and then, she advanced, carelessly, holding her blade higher: 'Never mind. Take me out of this castle or I'll kill you.'

'I see that with your health, you have recovered all your spit, fierceness and stupid carelessness,' he said, mockingly, 'pale assassin; I shall not move out of your way, and even less take you out of this castle. You have been brave, incredibly so, and stubborn beyond rationality; but what I want I will never give up wanting until I have.'

'I don't care what you want!' she cried, shaking her weapon at him, 'Come on, move away.'

'If you dare strike me, I promise I shall do whatever you want.'

She stepped back, taken off-balanced, not knowing what to do. Damn him to eternal abomination, anyone in his place would have already been running away screaming. Arach then did something bold and stupid; she ran up to him, and thrust the dagger in his hands. Surprised as much as herself for what she had done, he took it, but she had had time to toss herself past him, and dart down the corridor.

She had the advantage of surprise; but he had the advantage of being quicker, and knowing the place like his palm. She ran down a narrow staircase, jumped over the barrister, her legs flinching under her as she landed on the floor, and dashed down yet another corridor. After a while, she stopped; he was not following her anymore. Arach didn't take the time to sigh with relief, and ran down the corridor in which she was, opening the first door, then blindly tossing herself down steep stairs, then opening yet another door, crossing an empty chamber, and then bursting in a room hung with deep velvets and filled withhold men gravely talking under the purplish lights of the torches. Arach, as she tore for the opposite door, yelled, on the off chance:

'The Prince is hurt! He needs help.'

She crashed through the next door, crossed yet another empty corridor, and ran down yet another staircase. She stopped, catching her breath in a long, sharp hiss, and clutching her hand to her chest. This passageway was empty, dark and narrow, and lined with narrow doors. Arach ran to each of the doors, and found, with increasing rage and chagrin that they were all soundly locked. Finally, she reached the end of the corridor, found a dead-end, and whipped around back towards the stairs, running right into the Prince's arms.

Arach gasped, and grabbed his tunic, pushing herself away, but he held her tight. He hugged her, and kissed her hair, laughing in a way she could not have believed possible from the man who'd starved her till she could not move and beat her into unconsciousness. It was a laughter filled with amusement, pleasure, good-humor.

'I gave you the dagger!' wailed Arach, 'I could have killed you and I didn't!'

'Yes!' he said, stroking her hair and laughing in triumph, 'You could have, but you didn't; but that was for the simple reason that _you couldn't_.'

'Liar! You know I could have killed you as easily as snap my fingers!' she cried furiously, struggling against him with all her might, '_Let me go_!'

'No. I'll never let you go.'

'You'll have to! Either when you'll be tired of beating me for nothing, or when you'll finally kill me!' she cried, with a raging jubilation in her voice.

'Shut your mouth,' he told her, 'I won't beat you anymore. You proved me you were stronger than strength. No. I'll try to seduce you.'

'Ha!' she cried with magnificent scorn, 'we'll both be dead by the time your seduction will have any effect.'

'Do you think so?' he said brightly.

He took her back up the top floors of the palace; pushing her in front of him through the dark, torch-lit corridors, steering her with his two hands on her waist. She spat and snarled, she howled and menaced, she screamed, stormed and raged; but he nonetheless succeeded in taking her where he wished to take her.

It was a large room: comfortable, of a luxurious simplicity: white walls covered by heavy emerald-green and sapphire-blue velvets, stone floor covered by white rushes, two tall, narrow, diamond-paneled windows framed by thick ruby-red curtains and screened by heavy, trailing white layers of muslin. In the middle of the room, a large canopy bed, hung with crimson curtains and covered by a large satin, cream-colored counterpoint and similar cushions. Wardrobes, bookcases and desk where of polished ebony, the fireplace was carved, with a mantel-piece covered in a long collection of thick books, two large easy-chairs in front of the hearth, a table holding a bowl of tiny scarlet berries, and a tall, large mirror was standing next to the bed, reflecting the dancing light form the fire.

'What is all this about?' said aggressively Arach, stopping abruptly so that the prince bumped into her, which he did with an evident pleasure, 'I don't like this at all. Where are the brands to burn me into submission? Where are the knives to cut my flesh until—'

'Will you be quiet, for once!' said the Prince.

He pushed her lightly in.

'You know what? You go to sleep. Do not worry,' he said, loudly and rising a hand when he saw her open her mouth, 'I won't come and visit you during your slumber. Here,' he added, 'is the key of your room. You can lock yourself in if you wish.'

'Oh,' said Arach, low and furiously, 'and what about the other one you keep with yourself?'

'Remarkable child,' said the Prince, cheerfully.

He grabbed her by the sides of her face, kissed her full on the mouth, his lips lingering upon hers as he pressed the silver key into her hand; and stalked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Furiously, Arach threw the key to the door; it clinked against it, and fell on the floor clattering sweetly. How dared he kiss her like this, as if he had never tortured her as he had done! How dared he act as if he was merely her host, courteous and loveable.

'Curse you!' she screamed at the door.

She ran to it then, and tried to open it; but it didn't move one hair-breadth. He had locked it from the outside, and with another lock than the one for which she had the key. Arach cursed luridly, and kicked the door, hurting her knee and bare toes. She screamed, raged, hammered the door with helplessly small fists, and finally ended by flinging herself on the bed, falling asleep alarmingly quickly in the scented satin pillows.

She woke up with bright grey light streaming from the windows, making sleep not anymore possible. Cursing, she sat up, and drew the skirt of her gown back down her legs. She sat up, heavily, and looked around, still unable to believe that she wasn't either in her dungeon or in the Prince's bed-chamber. Loyal to herself, she decided to look for a weapon.

There was nothing useful. The wardrobes were filled with luxurious garments of diaphanous silks and rich velvets, and the only things except from clothes in this room were the thick leathered books, the burnished wooden bowl of berries and the fire. In a way, she could make a weapon of all of these: she could strangle anyone with the clothes, she could use the bowl to knock down people, and the fire to draw them away, but it wouldn't be of any use against the Prince; too quick for her, deadly graceful and slender.

'Damn him! Curse him! Be he—'

She was cut in the middle of her sentence by the arrival of the object of her dark maledictions. The Prince, coming bouncily in, dressed as usual with his becoming blacks, looking cheerful and extremely genial, said brightly:

'Ah, I believe you were talking about me, then.'

He grinned a wide, brilliant grin that very nearly made Arach forget all he had done to her.

'What do _you_ want?' she shouted at him.

'Merely to feed myself on the sight of your lovely face.'

'I hate you! Bog off!' she yelled, beside herself, 'give me a weapon! Beat me! Lock me up but just stop acting like this! As if you were some kind of courteous prince!'

'That _is_ what I am,' he said, smiling in an adorably modest fashion.

'Oh no! I don't think so!' she said with fury, 'what about those few last days, eh?'

'You will forget about this incident,' he said airily, dismissing the fact with a wave of his hand.

'Oh, yes, I am _obviously_ going to do this,' she snarled, with an angry snigger.

He majestically ignored the irony, and said:

'Do you intend to spend the day in your nightgown?'

'What are you talking about?' said Arach briskly.

'I thought I was clear enough in formulating my inquiry: Are you going to spend your day in your nightgown?'

'You mean this thing? She said poisonously, tugging at the front of her black silken dress.

'Exactly. This _thing_. I would prefer that you may dress more properly.'

'I don't care what you would prefer,' she said with the brutality of sheer rebellion, 'I just want you either to let me out of this room, or you to just bog off.'

'Manners manners,' said the Prince, mildly.

He advanced towards her, placidly, shoved her on to the bed, and then steered over to one of the wardrobes.

'I don't know much of women's art of dressing, but I think red and black are your colors. I would never think, for example, to dress you in—' he pulled out a long, silky rosy-pink dress from among the other gowns—'Pink!'

He laughed out loud.

'Imagine! The fierce little assassin in a pink dress!'

The idea seemed to form a very delightful picture in his mind, for he laughed even more, and then tossed the gown away.

Arach, meanwhile, edged, as if nothing, towards the unlocked door, her hands behind her back, and looking at the prince in a way she hoped most charmingly innocent. He was still in the wardrobe when she reached her goal, and she swiftly turned around to open it, but she hadn't even had time to turn the handle that she felt two powerfully fine arms circling her waist, embracing her. The Prince, still laughing, kissed her neck, and she turned around as if he had bitten her.

'Ugh, let me go!' she cried, pulling both hands against his marble chest and pushing.

'Oh, would I?' he said, laughing with his thin lips to her cheek, 'where are you going, assassin?'

'Anywhere, as long as it's far from you.'

'So be it. Kiss me and I'll go.'

'No way!' she yelled, wrathfully indignant.

He released her, with a deep, dramatic sigh, declared:

'Very well. I am afraid your desire is my will, therefore, I shall withdraw. But I shall come back too.'

He pushed her away from the door, and, taking a key from beneath his light black armor, he unlocked the door, and opened it.

'Hey, wait a minute!' cried Arach suddenly, thinking about something, and running to catch his arm.

'Oh, how lovely! You finally realized how much you need my splendid presence to breathe freely,' said the Prince sweetly.

'Dream on!' she said, annoyed, and went on quickly, 'I wanted to know what you have you done with Thunderion?'

'Aah, you just gave me the perfect weapon to blackmail you. A deal, opaline: you dress properly, act politely (I know how those words mean but very little to you,) and in return, I shall tell what I did of your fellow-rebels.'

'I ain't no reb—' started Arach, but he had already walked through the threshold, and shut the door behind him. She heard his key sing in the lock, and then his quick, decided footsteps fading away down the corridor at the same time as his soft, gleeful laughter.

**Author's Exceedingly Absurd After-note: So? How do you think I coped with the Prince's whip-around? I don't know if you really say this in English, but well, after all, I daresay all of my readers are clever enough to know what I mean. I mean that if you don't know what I mean, then it means that you don't know anything I mean at all, and then all of this doesn't have any meaning, see what I mean? (Sorry. I know this was a perfect piece of nonsense, but well, anything perfect is perfect, be it perfectly imperfect. Oops, sorry here I go again.)**

**Aaaaaanyway. I am in a horrendously cheerful mood, as you might well have noticed; and this because…: it's only –7 days till school! I feel I will die before the 8th day finally comes. Aaaanyway. Just review. And I mean it. I mean that I bet lots of people read my story without reviewing it, which is a perfect scandal! Talking of Scandals, I am nearly at the end of the _Count of Monte-Cristo_, if anyone knows about this book, by A. Dumas father. It is wicked, anyone who knows how to read and what to read should have read it. And I mean it. Neeeever mind. Just and uniquely REVIEW! (you can also e-mail me. I am sooo disappointed when I don't get any e-mail.'**


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's Trollish Note: Buenos Dias, amigos, quid novo? (So? What do you all think about my majestic fan of colorful foreign languages? Staggering, no?) **

**Anyway, the usual little introduction to this beautiful chapter: it is the most romantic one in the story, I think, but well, I don't know much about romanticism (just imagine if I were romantic, my parents' reaction! Gosh, it's frightening! But then again, I am romantic: anyone read Anne of Green Gables? Well, my romanticism is really like hers. Aaanyway, little does it matter, if you want my personal opinion, which you probably don't. (No one in the entire universe would be thoughtless and audacious (and courageous and bold) to ask my opinion.).).) Oops, sorry about all those parenthesis. It looks muddled…but never mind: read, please, and Review. Just do it, and do not importunate me further. Oh, and you can also e-mail me. Don't worry, of course, I don't bite…eheheh… **

**Chapter Twenty One**

**Tamed **

Arach spent a whole good fifteen minutes wondering what to do of the Prince's deal: the reasonable thing to do was to dress, after all, it cost her nothing, and she did want to know what had happened to Thunderion and the rest of his unfortunate team. However, to please the Prince after what he had done to her was strongly against all her self-respect and her mighty sense of revenge. The problem, though so simple for any reasonable person, seemed unbearably troublesome to Arach.

Finally, she decided against her pride, and stormed over to the ebony wardrobe, flinging the burnished, narrow door open and glaring at its luxurious, colorful contents. Roaming through the various clothing items, she finally tossed out a long dress with a deep black satin skirt, a plain black velvet bodice, and a red corset embroidered with black flowers. She kept her chemise and shift, tied a large, black lace petticoat doubled with silk not to itch the skin around her waist, pulled on the black dress, tightened the corset around her waist, and finally, slipped on black satin slippers. She gathered her hair back at the nape of her neck in a heavy, disheveled knot, stuffed a large black comb through it, and went to fling herself in one of the armchairs in front of the fire, which crackled loudly in the hearth and burned cheerfully. Outside, the dreary rain poured from the heavy autumn sky of sad tarnished silver, slashing against the closed window-panes, and making anyone, even Arach herself, feel relieved to be sitting on front of a good fire, in a soft, comfortable armchair.

Overwhelmed by boredom, with nothing else to do but curse the prince for inflicting idleness upon her, Arach inevitably ended by falling asleep, sprawling down so that her arm and head hung over one arm of her chair, forming a pathetic picture of desperate tiredness. She woke some two hours later, startled, and looked down at her lap: the prince, sitting on the floor, with his elbow on her armchair, had laid down his head on her knees, like a child seeking his mother's comfort, and it was the soft caress of his silky hair against her hand that had awaken her. With a cry, and regretting it immediately afterwards, she pushed him away, and stood up, hastily precipitating herself back form the chair and nearly tripping over the hem of her trailing skirt.

'Why didn't you wake me up?' she asked, reproachful but still too softly by her standards.

'Well,' said the Prince, in a very melancholic way, 'you do not storm and rage at me when you sleep. You just sigh, frown slightly, but your lips do not twist, and your hands remain peacefully where they are. Oh, yes, and I also can look at you properly. Without being hindered by your murderous glances and protective gestures.'

Arach, glaring at him, raised the neck of her black bodice higher.

'See?' said the Prince forlornly, dragging himself up on the place that was still warm form her body.

'You told me that if I dressed, properly, which I _did_, you would tell me what you did with Thunderion,' said Arach brusquely, accusingly, frowning down at him.

'You were not his mistress, were you?' asked the Prince, looking suddenly tense and dangerous, like a taut tiger ready to leap and tear it's prey's throat.

'I hope you're kidding,' said Arach, indignantly. Her reaction seemed to please him well enough; for he smiled smugly, his lips stretching slightly in this particular way of his, and gestured to the floor at his feet.

'Sit at my elbow, and I shall tell you all you want to know.'

'Sit at your elbow? You're way of beam, Prince,' Arach declared scornfully.

'Absolutely not,' replied the Prince, nonchalantly, 'but if you do not wish to sit at my elbow, you may sit anywhere else it pleases you.'

Arach went to unceremoniously plonk herself down into the armchair opposite his, curling herself deep in the soft cushions, and glaring at him through rebel strand of unruly sable hair.

'So?' she said curtly, imperiously.

'So what?' enquired the Prince, smiling amiably.

'What did you do with Thunderion?'

'I threw him into the dungeons. I wanted him hanged, of course, but we did not possess enough evidences against him. A clever, careful young man. His only mistake was to trust someone I trust.'

The Prince stopped, dutifully waiting for the next question.

'What about, the other ones? The Sylfaere guy, for example.'

The Prince, genially, cheerfully, recited: 'Lord Sylfaere was hanged two days ago. His corpse was enshrouded in silk, entombed in ebony, and buried in the Fields of High Victory, not far from the Dark Cathedral.'

Arach gaped at him.

'Hanged? You hanged Sylfaere?'

'I did most certainly,' said merrily the Prince, grinning at her, 'and I invited this dear Countess Eeliria at the execution.'

Arach stared at him in utter disbelief and shock. She who had killed so many people cold-bloodedly, she found it beyond any ruthlessness to hang a rebel.

'Under what pretext did you hang him, then?' she asked, her voice slightly shaking.

'He was a great master in the trade of Skyhigh, which is illegal, as you probably know. I had always had enough evidences to accuse him. Of course, given that I am the only greatest Skyhigh Master-of-Trade before him.'

Skyhigh, the greatest and most lethal drug known in the whole world, was strictly forbidden in every island. Even the Alchematorians themselves were not allowed to use it. And now, she learned that the very Emperor of the island was one of the master traders of this drug. Arach hovered between the admiration and the disgust, with the admiration, an awed, reverent admiration, quickly taking over the disgust.

'Oh…oh…right then,' said Arach, unsteadily, 'and…um, what about, whatsername? The Eeliria woman?'

'My mistress!' said triumphantly the Prince.

He looked closely at Arach's face, waiting for her reaction, which was absolutely not the one he had been hoping for. She jumped up from her seat, and said, joyfully, with a sort of pathetic hope:

'But then, you don't need me anymore, do you? You have Eeliria, who is so pretty and graceful and feminine and willing—'

She made bouncily for the door.

'It was a _real pleasure_ to make your acquaintance, your Highness. I'm taking myself off.'

The door was locked. Arach, with a fatalistic sigh, tossed herself back in her chair, the Prince smiling up dazzlingly at her.

'Very well then,' she said, with a queenly violent gesture of her hand, 'and what about Sthenn?'

'Whom?' the Prince said sharply, straightening abruptly and narrowing his striking eyes.

'Oh,' said Arach, thinking quickly: if the prince didn't know about the arch-thief, then the latter was probably safe and sound. Arach, smirking evilly, said: 'Oh, no one.'

'Never mind then,' said the Prince, waving aside the subject and ruining her hopes to anger him into doing something, 'I must talk to you about some visits I have received.'

'No concern of mine,' said Arach, dismissively.

'Indeed. Great concerns of yours. Three men came; two yesterday, and one this morning. All three were looking for one person: I young girl named Arachna, Assassin and Apprentice Alchematorian from StonePort.'

He observed her face as she paled considerably, and bit down her lips till scarlet pearls of blood appeared.

'What did you tell them?' she asked, in a tight voice.

'I asked them who they were. Two of them are hunters, paid by a certain Lord Drymarchon to capture you. The other one was a messenger form one of the Lords of GreenLands. Someone called Lord Araneus.'

'He!' cried Arach violently, 'Does he think I forgot? Oh no no no! Indeed not!'

She reported her blazing eyes back to the Prince, who was staring at her narrowly.

'Did he have a message? What did he say?'

The Prince's emerald eyes darkened.

'He did not want to tell me. I told him I was the Emperor, but I cannot do anything of him, given that he is from GreenLands. So I told him I did not know anyone of your name, and he went away. The same happened with the two hunters.'

'Was one of those hunters called something like Hawkke?' asked Arach, tensely, gripping the chair's arm so hard her knuckles went even whiter.

'Hawke?' said the Prince thoughtfully, 'No. One was called Tilence, the other Avalon.'

Arach sprawled back in her chair, thinking about the deal she had made with Requin: would the pirate keep his promise and try to hinder Hawkke if he came to cross the Wreck Sea to come and get her back from StonePort? Arach reflected that even if he didn't want to do it, his rage of wanting Arach for himself would push the pirate to stop the hunter, in spite of himself. But at the same time, it may be that Requin would miss Hawkke, and let him pass without knowing it. But then again, she was safe, there, in the depths of the Emperor's palace, with himself as her guardian. And for the first time, and against all her will to hate him, she felt glad to be there.

'What,' the Prince said, shrewdly, 'what are you thinking about, that your eyes may be so narrowed as to be only slits of black in your white face?'

'Oh, I was thinking about…someone I knew.'

'And loved?'

'And hated.'

'You comfort me by saying this. I don't think I could bear it if you had loved anyone in your life,' the Prince said, in tones frightening because both tender and hard.

'Ha!' cried Arach, exultantly, 'And don't you think I too could have loved someone? Just because I can't love _you_, doesn't mean I can't love anyone else.'

The Prince shot up from his armchair, and ducked sharply at her, seizing both her wrists, and saying, leaning his head on one side, and with his green eyes filled with such grief and pain it startled her:

'What did you say?'

Arach raised her arms, trying to free her hands form his grasp, but he rose at the time, and then he slammed her wrists together, and into the back on the chair, lowering his face close to hers.

'Tell me you lied. Tell me you only said this to anger me into releasing you.'

'No, I will certainly not,' she said, defiantly, exultantly, glad to finally be the one ruling, 'come on now, what are you going to do?'

'You know,' he said quietly, 'you strive to convince me and yourself—though mostly yourself—that you do not love me. But you had the occasion to kill me, didn't you? My dagger into your fist, and yet you did not strike. Why?'

Arach bit her lip, and raised dark eyes that had lost most of their fierce triumph to his own breathtaking green ones.

'Won't tell you.' she said, 'Let me go.'

He let go of her wrists, and she slowly rubbed them, frowning and regarding him with frightened accusation.

'You lie to yourself as much as you lie to me. And you cannot blind yourself as you cannot blind me.'

'You talk about things you don't have a clue about,' she hissed, half-nervous, half-bold.

'Just cease talking nonsense. I am tired of eternally encountering stupidity and obstinacy.'

'Ha!' Arach exclaimed, rising so that he was forced to take a step away from her, 'going to beat me, are you?'

'No…' he started.

'You already did your worst with me! You'll never be able to get what you want, and you know it! You are the only one beyond stupid and obstinate—'

Cutting her through, he kissed her, hard upon the lips. It succeeded in silencing her, and she was so startled by the sudden attack that she stepped back in her turn, and fell heavily back into the chair.

'Do you know that people have been executed for such insolence as yours?'

'Oh indeed, your Highness,' said Arach, her lip curling as she sneered, 'if I were to be killed each time I lack politeness towards a rascal like you—'

Again, he silenced her, but this time by slamming his palm over her lips, imposing upon her a forced silence she would not tolerate. Shaking her head, she freed her mouth form his hand, and cried:

'You have nothing else but your might and rank, and when you wear down those two weapons, you are entirely inoffensive, as well as defenseless!'

She rose, triumphant, jubilant:

'Come on, your Highness! What do you say about _this_!' she tossed at him.

'I say that you too, like me, have probably some weak points. I also say that I intend to find them, and exploit them. I say that as you seem so rebel and hostile today, I shall withdraw, and shall seek comfort in the arms of my willing mistress. An unwilling mistress is very delightful and amusing, but one gets wearied by her constant sneers and snarls.'

He made towards the door, serenely, majestically. Arach, indignant, yelled:

'_Unwilling mistress_?' and he laughed out loud, opened the door, and was out, without replying or adding anything else.

Angrily, she flung herself on the bed and lay there, face plunged into the deep white pillows, arms lying at her side. Finally, she turned around to breathe, and looking up at the dark red company of her bed, she heaved a sigh, reflecting what he had said, and feeling more and more worried about what she was feeling, growing as she reluctantly tried to pierce the shadows of her complicated, labyrinthine heart, more and more angry.

She was plunged deeply into difficult, muddled thoughts, her mind very misty, when the door opened. Arach sharply sat up, swinging her legs off the bed. A maid, dressed in a dark golden dress and carrying a heavy wooden tray laid with food, came in. At the sight of Arach, she quickly lowered thick long blond lashes to her plump cheek, and hastily pulled down the tray upon the ebony table between the two armchairs Arach and the Prince had occupied several minutes earlier.

'How did you get in, then?' asked Arach, rudely.

'My Lady, I got in by the door.'

'The door? Did you have the key, girl?' said Arach, and the maid thought that she was really cheeky, calling her girl, even though she was probably several years younger.

'My Lady, it was unlocked.'

'Never!' cried Arach, indignantly.

She jumped off the bed, and ran for the door, but the maid hastily interposed herself between her and her goal.

'My Lady, the Emperor ordered that you may not come out of your room. He said you were very ill disposed and that your body needing to refresh before he might—'

'The lout!' yelled Arach.

She stared down at the girl, and then sneered:

'Ooh, and how are you going to stop me from going out?'

'My Lady, I will not hinder you. The Black and White Knight shall.'

'Who?' said Arach carelessly, deliberately striding to the door and flinging it open.

Leaning against the threshold, a young man dressed entirely in black and white, with his pale silver-blond hair gleaming silkily over his shoulders, and his green-blue eyes glittering like semi-precious gems, Double-Game stood, smiling down at her a smug smile.

'Oh!' cried Arach, disgust engraved in each single feature of her pale face, '_You_!'

'Me, Assassin. And you do not look very pleased to see me too, I might add.'

'Pleased to see you! When you have betrayed your friend to a man, and then a man to your friend! _Double-Game_!'

'Ah…I presume the Prince told you, then.'

'Oh yeah, he did! He hanged Sylfaere! And, he jailed Thunderion! And—'

She stopped, and said, eagerly:

'And what about the Arch-Thief from the Bridges? What happened with him?'

Double-Game laughed with evident amusement.

'The thief! He did what any thief would have done! He broke into Thunderion's strongbox, and stole all his money. He was clever; an opportunist.'

'Ooh, yeah,' Arach retorded venomously, 'Better be an opportunist than a double traitor, don't you think?'

'Better be a double traitor than an assassin,' said Double-Game maliciously.

'How can you say that? Assassins don't betray no one! They are loyal, and never finish by turning their blade against the ones who paid them!'

'Indeed not. That would be even worst than a traitor.'

'I hope you're kidding!' exclaimed Arach, 'Free-won trust is far more precious than money, and you can't deny it, traitor and monster that you are—now, let me pass.'

'And betray my friend?' said Double-Game in mock indignation.

'Don't play the innocent. I hate you, and I'll probably end by killing you, so don't abuse too much of your luck.'

Arach tried to push him away from her path, but he stood firm, unmoving and silent. Wrathfully, she grabbed his arm, and pinched it viciously, but he wore a chain-mail, and the attack left him totally unharmed. Arach then went for boldness, and she ducked, making a grab for the long, slender dagger that hung at his hip. And as she closed her hand tightly over the hilt, Double-Game's own hand came to close tightly over her wrist.

'Would you dare?' he whispered, his eyes so bright they seem to burn her through to her very soul.

'I would; you know I would,' she replied through clenched teeth.

He sharply took her hand away from his dagger, and dragged her in the room.

'Mayflower, you may withdraw.'

The maid hurriedly scurried away, and he added:

'Do not close the door. I am going.'

He turned back to the struggling girl in front of him, smiled down at her, and released her, then backed away slowly, keeping his aqua-marina eye on her as he slowly reached for the door.

'To our next meeting, sweet little Assassin,' he said quietly, and was out of the room.

She heard a key scrape in the lock, shouted a simple shout of rage, and went for her food. She devoured her salted meat, her vegetable soup, her soft bread, her creamy cheese and her dried fruits, and then drank the acid apple juice slowly, sprawling back in the armchair and enjoying a moment of sheer, reluctant delight as she was aware of the whipping rain pouring down against the windows, and the warm fire in the hearth, and her gentle dress satiny soft against her skin.

She finished drinking slowly, then slammed the bottle down back on the table, and went for a book. When she was younger, Snakehiss had often encouraged her to read; he told her that to read was to know, and that someone that couldn't enjoy a book properly was doomed to fall and never rise again. Taking a book from the thick wooden mantel piece, she opened it: Song of the Downfall, by Thane Quelimclaron. Everybody knew him; he was popular, as the greatest poet and philosopher of all times. Arach had never read anything by it, but when she was still at Spider's Web, she had often spent evenings slumbering at Snakehiss's chair's foot, listening as he read in his brusque, yet smooth way particular to him. Arach, absorbing herself in her thoughts, soon forgot the book, and sank so deep into her memories and cogitation that she jumped when the book slipped from her hand to fell with a soft noise on to the rushes under the chair in which she was sitting. Realizing that her neck ached, she went to the bed to lie down lazily, at the same time as reproaching herself for growing soft. She then made her peace by thinking that after all, it was the Prince who was imposing this forced indolence over her—she fell asleep.

She woke up at the sound of the slashing rain outside mingled with the crackling of the fire in the fireplace, and smiled sleepily, feeling more comfortable and good than she had done in her whole life. She shifted slightly under covers someone had pulled over her, and suddenly, she realized that her head was not lying on a soft pillow—but on a firm, warm chest which rose and lowered at a steady, slow rhythm. Sitting up, she turned around, crimson flushing at her cheeks and lips, as she beheld the Prince, lying beside her on the bed, his head sinking back in the pillows, his eyes shut, his face quiet and pale, his hair silky black over the white of the pillow. One hand was lying over his torso, the other arm had been curled around her shoulders. Arach slammed her hand over her mouth, and edged away from the warm, welcoming arms, feeling mortified.

She reached the edge of the large bed, and carefully pulled her legs down, and was about to stand up when she felt drawn back into the gentle embrace—so loving, so different from the cruel kisses he had first given her. She made to move way, but he whispered:

'Don't take away form me the only thing I have…'

And she let herself go beside him, laying her cheek against the beating warmth of his heart, and closing her eyes. Yes, she thought, he was right; he had nothing else but his love for her.

'And Eeliria...?' she asked, not really meaning it.

He didn't answer, just shifted to his side, so that she was facing him, and pulled her closer, burying his face into her white neck, and painfully tightening his arms around her body. She snuggled up to him, sighing, and thought, against her whole mind and brain: 'how I love him,' and so did she.

**Author's Impressively Impudent After-Note: Here we go: I've just finished Chapter Twenty-One, and I'll stop here. Three chapter's alright, I guess, and I'll go on writing the other ones. If I am not too lazy, I hope the next time I can I'll at least give you 22, 23 and 24. **

**Aaaanyway...What did you think about this chapter? Please review. Personally, I found it very lovely, very romantic. But, of course, I don't care about what I think—yes, I care more about what you think than what I think, so don't you think you should think about it? If you thought about it you would think that I thought well by not thinking…(Ink, again. Sorry everyone.) Just review.**

**Post Memoris: Oh yeah, I just wanted to give you news about my Personality Facets, for those who are interested: Bob's back, but he had his left arm eaten off by a shark while in his trip to the Caribbean. He thinks it gives him a very male, very heroic air, so he isn't too upset, thank god. Sharpe's escaped from the attic, and is gone away too, so now, without Minotaur or Sharpe, it is a bit empty, but also, Trice is back from jail, and she doesn't stop fighting with Colonel, because he spends his days polishing his badges and weapons while she does all the dusting…Anyway: Ink's in the hospital: she thought it would be very entertaining to dance semi-naked at moonlight in the garden—what she hadn't noticed was that it had rained all day…Amethyst is in a ghoulish mood, she just wrote a poem about the garnet-gold gleam of blood, etc etc…well, that's all I wanted to say. See you all, and please please please review… **


	22. Chapter 22

**Author's Disastrous Note: Hello, my dear child :_said the big bad wolf with a saccharine voice_: what are you reading this fair little morning, may I ask?**

**Anyway, I just wanted to say, to warn, really: if you are a sensible, sensitive person, ( and if you at least cried more than five minutes at S.B. or A.D.'s death is H.P. 5 or 6,) you'd better NOT read this bit. Someone is going to die, and to horrendously tragic consequences. I hope I will describe the scene poignantly enough; you'll have (I mean it, guys, you'll HAVE,) to tell me about it. And please, don't cry too much (which means, catching the Hidden Meanings, that you hare in the obligation to cry just a bit, you know, the little pink handkerchief at the corner of heartbreakingly dry eyes, and the affected little sobs'n'sniffs.) **

**Chapter Twenty Two**

**The Mutilated Heart**

When Arach woke up the next morning, she was alone, in the middle of the large bed, deeply entangled in her warm blankets. Wondering whether she had dreamt about the Prince, and flushing deeply at the thought she might have, she slowly dragged herself out of the bed, which was a difficult prowess to accomplish given the incredible comfortableness of lying under gentle satin covers, in a deep mattress of feathers, with soft, cloud-like pillows under her head. Admonishing herself for growing more and more lazy by the hour, she who was used to sleep in her narrow, cold bed at the bottom of an old, cheap inn, Arach sank, without even noticing it, deeper into the mists of sleepiness.

Finally succeeding in sitting up, Arach rubbed her face with her hands, pulling down the corner of her eyes and sighed. The comb she had been wearing the day before had been removed from her hair, which now fell down in the usual ragged veil of unequal dark strands, falling over her dark eyes and white forehead and tickling the back of her neck. Arach, glaringly looking around at the room, with the dawn still too pale outside to lit it properly, and the clear fire in the chimney, told herself that after all, she didn't have any work, and that she could permit herself to go back to sleep for a few minutes without bruising her honour too much. So, lying back down, she blissfully shut her eyes, and fell back into delicious slumber.

The second time she was awoken, it was by the Prince, leaning against her back and arm, and bending to lightly kiss her cheek. His lips were cold over her warm, flushed cheeks, and his silky black hair caressed her face. She opened her eyes, groaning, and blinked in the raw, metallic light streaming pitilessly from the windows, softened by the muslin curtains but still too bright.

'Gerrofme,' she slurred incoherently, as she struggled to emerge from the delicious paralysis of sleepiness.

She lazily rolled away from beneath him, but he caught her back, tenderly embracing her through the blankets.

'You can go back to sleep,' he told her, in the way a king would give a great amount of gold to a starving peasants.

She decided she wouldn't be as feeble as she had been in her dream, and rolled further away until she reached the edge of the bed, and fell over to the rush-covered floor, heavily, and lay there, looking up as he bent his head out of the bed, looking down at her and frowning between the silkily hanging hair:

'And why exactly did you do this?' he asked, with a smug little grin.

She sat up, heavily, as if her body weighted too much for her to pull it up, and clumsily pushing long raven strands away from her blinking eyes, she yawned inelegantly.

'You can guess by yourself, your Highness,' she said, as she stood up, unsteadily, clutching one of the posters to hold herself up.

He lay back on the bed, settling comfortably among the pillows and covers, which were still warm from the assassin's body, closing his fine lids over his emerald eyes and sighing deeply; and she took her chance and went for the door; which was unfortunately locked.

'Why did you lock the bloody door?' she asked, and went to sprawl down in an armchair by the fire.

'Oh, you can guess by yourself, opaline,' he said, not opening his eyes, but smiling.

They both remained silent for a moment, and finally, the Prince announced in a most majestically idle way:

'A third hunter arrived this morning, a little before dawn. Sir Nightspell. Looking for a certain Lady Arachna.'

'Ah,' said Arach, flatly, 'and so what?'

'I told him she had dastardly plotted against me, and had been most severely tortured, killed and left to rot at the bottom of the coldest, deepest dungeon.'

Arach, in spite of herself, grinned.

Silence fell again, with only the sad whisper of dreary falling rain from outside and the crackling of the fire, and Arach, curled in the depths of the easy-chair, felt her eyelids grow annoyingly heavy again. Not properly awakened anyway, she felt herself sinking back pathetically into sleep, but was caught back into the real world when the prince drawled:

'Opaline, come here a second.'

'No way,' she declared, too low for him to hear and not even bothering to open her eyes.

He didn't reply or insist. The sound of the rain that had started pouring viciously against the glass windowpanes, replacing the slow, lazy splutter, and the low, peaceful purr of the bouncy fire filled the room. Arach dozed off.

She woke up with a start, with an idea that had crossed her mind in a dazzling flash: sharply sitting up, she looked piercingly over at the Prince: sprawled on the bed, his eyes shut and his beautiful face paler than usual, he was sleeping, breathing slowly and steadily, with both arms thrown over his head. Arach, a slow smile of triumph spreading across her face, tiptoed over to him, and bent down. Where would he put his key? She first looked for pockets at his black breeches, but found none. Then, she slowly, carefully groped at his clothes, with the tips of her fingers, feeling for the solidity of some iron. She started by his throat, then lower down his chest, and there, she found something hard against her fingers. Nimbly, she raised the neck of his tunic, and slipped her hand inside, reaching for the small key, which, unfortunately, hung from a thin silver chain around his neck. At the same time as she realized this, she realized that he wore nothing underneath the light black tunic; he who always wore an armor, even when sleeping, was now utterly defenseless. Shocked to feel the warm, satiny skin under her hand, Arach sharply got it away, as if it had burned her. Stepping away, and biting her lip hard, she thought about how she could take the key away: she could either try to get the chain over his head, and risk waking him, or find a way to cut or break the chain, which was probably thin enough, or find a possible clasp. So she bent back over him, careful not to sink too much in the deep feather mattress, and took hold of the thin cold chain, which glinted in the feeble grey light from the windows, and started turning it slowly, keeping the key between her fingers, but slipping the chain around, looking for a little clasp. There wasn't any. Furiously, Arach straightened, away from him, and looked around for anything that could help her break the chain. Nothing, of course. Cursing inwardly, she took the resolution to try her last chance: taking the chain delicately in both hands, and raising it above the prince's sleeping head, she drew it slowly upwards, feeling the back, which was under his neck, slowly ease away from the heaviness of his head. The worst thing that could happen, she thought darkly, was that it would catch his hair and wake him up. She went on pulling slowly for a while, and finally, the chain drew free. With a smirk of triumph, Arach jubilantly made to move away, but the prince, his eyes still closed, grabbed the key from her hand, with an indolent snigger:

'Stupid child,' he drawled lazily.

Arach, unable to admit defeat, grabbed at his wrist, and tried to tear the chain and key from his closed fist, but he held fast. He was stronger than she was, and though she pinched him as viciously as she could, he did not let go.

'You could go on twisting my skin until it fell off my arm: I shall not let it go,' he declared smugly, opening his eyes.

She let go of his arm, sighing in exasperation and glaring at him, with no result but an amused snigger.

'Why can't you just lie down and stay at rest, opaline,' he said 'I don't see why you so absolutely want to get out,' he sat up, and, leaning his head on one side: 'Come on, give me a reason.'

'I want to get back home,' she said aggressively, glaring at him.

'What is waiting for you back there? A cold assassin's couch, dirty jobs, hunters after you...'

'My freedom! My—'

He cut her through, disdainfully waving away the feeble reasons with a sweep of his elegant white hand:

'Just think, reasonably, and using this little brain of yours: What is your cold cheap inn against my royal apartments? Your few blood-stained coins against all my possessions? Your freedom against my love?'

She said nothing, but her glare deepened: she absolutely hated being silenced by anyone or anything—it was against her reason, and it was a very hard, cruel blow to her already vastly damaged pride.

'What are your prospects in life? You have nothing, you are alone; you were desperate enough to risk trying to kill me against money. Where is your life leading?'

'I've got a revenge to look to,' she said, and briskly got up.

'Aah,' said the Prince, his smug smile turning to a frown.

He caught her wrist, so quickly she didn't even see him move, and brutally pulled her down beside him:

'What is it about, this vengeance?' he asked, keeping a firm hold of her hand.

'None of your problem,' she said bitterly.

He lowered his pale lips to her ear:

'A love story?'

She grabbed the hand with which he was holding her free one, and tried to tear it away, crying:

'What the bloody hell are you talking about?'

'There are very few things that could push such a young lady to seek vengeance. Disappointed love is often the reason.'

'Well, I'm no lady, if you want to know: I am merely someone looking for revenge, end of matter, now leave me alone.'

'That I most certainly won't. I wonder if I should not try to get the story from one of those lords who are seeking you: Lord Drymarchon, or this other one whom you seem to hold in such loathing: Lord Araneus.'

His lips stretched into a satisfied grin as he saw her pale to frightening ghostliness.

'You…you won't do that, will you?' she asked tonelessly.

'Aah, so those two are involved, aren't they? And so is probably the certain Hunter Hawkke.'

She grabbed his arm, pleadingly:

'Who told you about him?'

'You did. You should have seen your face when you asked me if any of the hunters come for you was named Hawkke. I wonder what those three men did to you to make you so pale, you who couldn't be brought down by my cruelest blows…'

He looked down at her, and his smile faded:

'I am afraid there are too much mysteries and men in your life,' he said, softly.

'Give me the bloody key and let me go.'

'No.'

'You know,' she wailed plaintively, trying to free her wrist which he still held tightly, making it feel numb as the blood got blocked off, 'with all the pretty women like Eeliria that repine themselves over you, I don't see why—'

He majestically cut her through:

'And I don't see why you are always talking to me about Eeliria: but I daresay it is absolutely normal to be jealous.'

She glared up at him, her eyes glinting black daggers, and he laughed, pulling her against him, and hugging her.

'You are fooling yourself, and you know it!' she cried, but he once again cut her across:

'Perhaps I would be fooling myself if you hadn't given up the weapon you could have plunged into my chest.'

'You were wearing an armor!' she cried, at once disgusted with the feebleness of her own answer.

'Oh yes!' he cried, laughing in triumph and mockery.

He roughly stuffed the back of his hand under her chin, and brusquely tipping up her furious face to his, kissed her on the mouth. His lips were so soft, so gentle it startled her, but then he pulled away, smiling, as, biting her lips, she looked at him with childish accusation in her dark eyes. He then held up the chain, from which the silver key, catching the cold light of the day, dangled; and gently, slipped it around her head. She looked up at him, gaping, astonished, and his grin widened, as if he had just heard a really amusing story. He took her hair, raising it so that the chain fell against her neck, and them smoothed it down tenderly over her shoulders.

'Really,' she said, frowning, 'I fail to understand you.'

'So do I with you,' he said, and took her back against him.

'Wait!' she cried hastily, slipping her hands between them and quickly pushing away, 'do you really allow me to go?'

'Obviously not!' he exclaimed, and sniggered, 'you know,' he added, as he brought down her hands away from between them with his arm, so that she brutally fell forward against him, her cheek to his shoulder, 'I really marvel that you are still hoping to get away.'

'And I marvel that you are still hoping you'll get what you want from me!' she said fiercely.

He casually ignored the reply, and pulled her down, lowering her and himself into the soft, deep mattress, with both their heads upon the pillows. Arach protested loudly, wailing at the top of her voice:

'I'm not your damned mistress! Let me go, your bloody Highness!'

'I am excruciatingly weary,' he said quietly, 'so, you will have to wait till I'm asleep, and then you will be able to bewail yourself as much as you want.'

'Why didn't you go to sleep in your own bed? Or any other bed in any other room in the whole damned castle? I mean—'

'I absolutely do not care what you mean. Keep your dagger-sharp tongue behind your teeth, and be silent.'

Arach opened her mouth wide to reply, but then she felt against her breast the solidity of the key, and thought, the only way I can open the door is while he is asleep…

She remained silent, and lay still in the gentle embrace of his comforting arms, as he shut his eyes and his breathing started to slow and steady down. She waited for several cautious minutes, glaring attentively at his beautiful thin face, and trying to catch an expression that might betray that he wasn't sleeping. As she found none, she slowly started to roll away from him, but as she was about to finally pull off him, his hold tightened possessively, and he brought her back into his arms, hard against his chest, and sighing in her hair.

'Ooh, damn him,' she grunted through gritted teeth.

She waited a bit more, counting up till hundred and then starting to count again, growing more and more fierce and impatient by the minute. Finally, she decided it was safe enough to try again. She succeeded.

Slowly, very slowly, she extirpated herself away from him, and when he grunted, swiftly stuffed a pillow between his arms. It seemed to satisfy him, because he cuddled against it, and heaved a deep, contended sigh. Sneering, Arach got of the bed, and briskly made for the door. When she reached it, she took the chain with the key form her neck, stuffed the key in the lock, and turned hopefully. The lock creaked discretely, and clicked. Arach, her grin widening in a most evil way, pulled the chain back on, and opened the handle.

The door opened in front of her, quietly, giving on the corridor, which was lit up by quiet torches, having no window, only rising wooden doors. The corridor ended in a tall, arched wooden door, and Arach, without hesitation, ran for it. It was locked. Her glee somewhat smothered, Arach forced herself to calm down and think; he didn't have any other key, so, he hadn't come by this way, given that the door was locked. Of course, he could have had hidden the key somewhere in any of the rooms, or even hers. But still, she decided to look for an open door. She started with the first room at the corridor's end's right. The door was locked. She skipped.

The next door was opened, and she unceremoniously banged in. It was a small room, furnished in rich glossy oak, and with walls covered in deep violet tapestries. Arach, angrily, looked behind each and every of them, and behind curtains too, but found no door. She went out. Trying door after door, skipping the locked ones, she visited all the open ones, and looked for other doors—she found none. Finally, accepting the fact that in a way or another, he had another key, Arach went back into her room, where the Prince, peaceful, because he had known all along that she would not be able to escape even with the key, still slept.

'Damn him.'

Arach tossed herself into one of the armchairs, and glared into the dancing fire, which seemed to mock her in its bouncy cheerfulness. She wished she could kill it.

He woke up several hours later, finding her unceremoniously sprawled over the floor, in front of the flaming fire, building castles with a pack of cards she had found on the mantel-piece, and then smashing them down with vindictive viciousness. He rose easily, and went over to her, as she scrambled up and tossed a handful of cards at his face:

'You're rested now, so bog off!' she yelled at him.

'I wonder that you are still here,' said the Prince, with bright sarcasm.

'Ooh, you are so funny, your damned highness,' spat Arach, 'now just get away from my room!'

'Ah, _your_ room, assassin,' said the Prince, smirking smugly.

'Well, get me back into a dungeon then!' said Arach defiantly.

The Prince picked up the cards.

'The heart queen!' he exclaimed, brandishing one in front of her nose , and then and laughing: 'certainly not you, opaline.'

He tossed the card into the fire.

'Do you want to play?' he asked, gathering the other cards.

'If you play money,' Arach declared mutinously.

'Oh, indeed. But what about you? What money have you got to bet?'

'I can still borrow money out of you, your cursed Highness,' said Arach, collapsing into her armchair.

'You perfectly well know I don't want any money from you. You can pay me with kisses. You never actually kissed me.'

'Dream on, Prince,' said Arach mercilessly.

They ended by playing cards. He liked inventing new rules, but she was always better than him. He tried to cheat, but he wasn't good at it either, even though he was swift and graceful. Finally, tired of his whims and awful playing, Arach tossed her cards into his face, and went to throw herself on her bed, with a tragic sigh of disgust and weariness. He bouncily rejoined her, but she rudely pushed him away until he fell off. He wailed reproaches as he scrambled back up again, but this time she decided to simply ignore him. They lay side by side, looking up at the bed's dark canopy, and finally, she proposed:

'You could bring swords. Then we could fight, and whoever kills the other one wins.'

'Oh no,' said the Prince, in desolated tones, 'it is absolutely boorish to hurt a lady.'

'You're afraid to lose, that's all,' said disdainfully Arach, 'after all, someone who doesn't know how to play cards probably doesn't know which side is the sword hilt.'

'That,' said the Prince patiently, 'is because I don't need swords to kill people—'

'You only need your feet, your fists and a wall,' Arach interrupted him sardonically.

'Don't be so vindictive…'

'I have my reasons for being so, and I think that you perfectly know these reasons, your bloody Highness.'

'If you imply the incidents of your first days here—'

Arach snorted loudly.

'—then I cannot but ignore such a feeble reason.'

Arach shot up, turning around sharply.

'Feeble reasons, your bl—'

'Quit calling me this, for I am neither bloody nor high.'

'You're bloody and low, your bloody Lowness.'

'You could be hanged for such insolence,' said the Prince mildly.

She lay back down, her head sinking in the pillow, her hair spreading around in a halo of ragged raven, and they remained silent for several minutes. Finally, Arach declared:

'You will finally end by letting me go. You could, of course, reduce your sufferings by letting me go just a little bit earlier.'

The Prince sniggered.

'I incidentally found your company rather entertaining, my dear assassin, and I think I would rather endure your cantankerousness rather than lost the privilege to listen to your amusing, silly replies.'

'I hate you,' she declared solemnly, as a conclusion, and both fell silent again, staring dreamily up into the canopy; the Prince with his hands under his head, his legs crossed and a smug smirk stretching his thin white lips; Arach glaring up as if the heavy garnet velvet as if it had done her an unforgivable wrong.

Finally, she savagely wailed:

'I am so weary!'

'Are you?' the Prince asked eagerly, leaning himself on one elbow and looking at her in a way that made her quickly add:

'Weary of doing nothing, your obtuse Lowness.'

'Well, I do have remedies to your weariness,' he started meanly.

'It's all right!' yelled Arach quickly.

'—I suppose you never even tried. I could, of course—'

Quicksilver, she grabbed one of the deep soft pillows, and thrust it violently into his grinning face. He simply laughed, tossed her the pillow back, and lay down again.

'My dear unwilling mistress,' he started, and ignored her as Arach winced sourly, 'do lie down beside me, as mere friends, and talk to me about this childhood drama that retains you from living in my arms till the end of your days.'

Arach lay down beside him, after having stuffed a line of fat cushions between the two of them, stuck her hands under her head; her long, black hair spilling all over the deep white pillow. She closed her eyes, and said:

'I was born in a faraway country called Blue. No—actually, it was called Black. So, I was born in Black, which is situated far into the north, among a little group of tiny islands filled with very small people with weak health. I was born at the fifth moon, as Killer, Destroyer and Poisoner, the three greatest northern stars, lined into the Axis of the Assassin. My parents, a fish-seller of the lowest-rank,' Arach took the greatest pleasure in inventing such a father, at the same time as imagining what her real father would have said if he had heard this, 'and an old retired inn-singer, were most horrified with my being born under the Axis of the Assassin, and they moaned and wailed all night with other various relative.'

At this point, Arach stopped: the Prince, slyly, looking unconvincingly innocent, had been slow removing the pillow she'd placed as a barrier between them. Firmly, and without giving him one look, she took them all back, and rebuilt the barrier, then lay back down, as he sighed miserably, and went on with the tale:

'As I grew up, it was obvious that I was to be the cruelest and most unfeeling person in the entire island, and my parents had quick to send me away: to the boarding school of White Thane; a cheap, measly academy situated in the farthest island in the north: Lair. There, I grew up most sickly, and all my teachers agreed on one point: I was stupid and disobedient. They all took top bet me from dawn till dusk, and I was often not allowed to eat and even less to sleep—one day, I ran away.

'Into the cold snows and blizzards, I difficultly made my way to a tiny village of Bear-Hunters. There, I learned to fight bears and ice-wolves from a wise, magnanimous old man, and then I killed him and took his place as a leader. It was my first assassination.'

At this point, Arach was starting to deeply enjoying herself. She had never told so much lies packed so tightly and told so loosely: she grinned as she went on:

'One day, a particularly unfruitful hunt pushed us further and further into the north, until we reached a cave, in which we boldly entered. The cave, to our great wonder, was filled with crystal lights; for the walls, the ceiling and the ground, as well as the sharp stalactites hanging over our heads, were all in the purest, hardest diamond.'

She went on like this, inventing on as she spoke; adding flying engines, talking daggers and apocalypse to revive the tale. However, she presently had to stop: after the encounter of a man-banshee disguising himself as Thunderion, she had agreed to assassinate a certain mentally-feeble prince. She turned around to look at the Prince, and saw, to both her amusement and annoyance, that he was sleeping; his hands lying on his chest, his face sunk in the pillow.

'Sleep on and strangle in your sleep while you're at it,' she told him out loud.

He grunted, as if in courteous agree, and went on sleeping, and Arach started wondering if the servant girl, Mayflower, would ever come with food again. She was hungry. Finally, out of boredom, she fell into a kind of waking-slumber, half-conscious, half into the dazed, glazed world of dreams. Beside her, the Prince sighed, but she didn't take notice. She fell asleep.

She woke up several hours later, it was not naturally: a feeling of warm wetness sipping through her clothes, at her side, her sleeve and her arm, had awoken her. Opening her eyes, still in a state of half-sleep, she looked around: her head was resting against a deep pillow, supported by a taut, hard arm, and her right arm was tucked against a warm side, her hand lying on a solid chest. Sitting up, she clumsily removed long strands of cobweb-fine hair form her face, and looked down.

The sight that met her eyes tore the breath from her throat. Not believing what she was actually seeing, she stared: the Prince was lying on his back, his eyes shut, his face serene—he could have been sleeping, but if his face had not been so _pale_; it seemed to have been forsaken of any color; white cheeks, wide eyelids, a white brow—all as white as death. His hand that hadn't been supporting her head was deposed lightly upon his heart, from which rose a thread-fine carved silver pommel. Blood had soaked his entire tunic, as well as the cover underneath him, her own right sleeve and half her bodice.

She did not believe what she was seeing. She stared, her eyes blank: shock held her body paralyzed in a grip of iron, her breath tightly imprisoned in her chest, unable to come out. Both her hands had risen to her mouth, and trembled there, frail and shivering like the mirror of water being kissed by the feather-light touch of wind.

'No no no no…oh _no_…'

The whisper left her lips, low and like a pure note in the silence, strangely shuddering.

The Prince opened his eyes, slowly, and looked at her: her face to which the blood had stopped coming, her wide, shocked eyes, her trembling fingers pressed to her trembling lips…He smiled, his lips stretching slowly.

Anger, at the same time as a sorrow she had never imagined could even exist, hit her. A brutal sob racked her body, and violently, she grabbed his hair, with both hands, yanking hard and crying, her voice broken with grief:

'Don't smile! Don't you dare smile! I hate you _I hate you_ I hate you…'

She shook him ragingly, the words fading from her lips.

The Prince, his smile widening, raised a hand to her face, caressing her cheek with the back of his hand, softly, tenderly, as she screamed brokenly:

'Who? Who?'

'You do not need me to tell you…'

'He—'

She gasped in her breath, her grip tightening.

'He did it—didn't he? He—'

She released him, and threw herself away, tumbling off the bed and screaming raggedly:

'I'll hunt him down—I'll rip his throat to rags of blood—I'll tear his heart from his chest—I'll—'

She precipitated herself to the door, but before she reached it, staggering, she whipped around, and ran back to the bed.

'Don't close your eyes!' she cried, grabbing the Prince by the shoulders, 'I'll help you! I'll bring your healing potions, I'll stop the blood! I'll—'

'Child,' the Prince interrupted, quietly: 'Be silent.'

Arach sank to her knees beside the bed, grabbing a blood-soaked hand and pressing it to her lips, violent sobs racking her body, tears running down her face, from eyes that never before had wept but in anger.

'Please, please—oh _please_—_no_…'

He said:

'You will not remove the blade form my heart. You will not go anywhere. You can, of course, but if you did—' he stopped to hiss in his breath, '—I would hate you for ever.'

'Stupid Prince!' she screamed, her voice thin, broken.

'Come beside me. I want—' again he stopped to breathe in, '—to die in your arms. You cannot refuse me this last favor…'

'I can!' she screamed, rage and sorrow tearing at her heart, 'I bloody can! I told you not to trust him! I told you!'

She got up nonetheless, and threw herself beside him, burying her head in his hard shoulder, and weeping:

'You don't care…You don't care…you die selfishly, without me…._you don't care_!'

He pressed her closer with an arm, and without thinking, she slammed her open palm over his heart, surrounding the knife, and feeling the warm blood flow through her fingers.

'You did not care about me, when I longed for you, did you? No—you were selfish. You refused me the only thing I ever loved. Don't accuse me of selfishness.'

She clutched at the knife, her hand fisting with the streaming blood running down it, ruby-red against snow-white. The tears were burning her cheeks, blinding her, and hard sobs shook her body so hard they shook his body too.

'I hate you, _oh how I hate you_…'

'Liar.'

He hugged her harder, pressing her closer, as blood soaked through her bodice, the warm, crimson gold of his heart reaching her heart, burning it. She had a heart, then—after all this years of persuading herself constantly that she did not possess this strange, hateful organ of love, there it was; hidden in the depths of her black hate: this burning, white-hot heart, now shattering like spider-webbed glass, the keen bits biting into her entire body, blistering needles of knife-sharp sorrow piercing every single bit of her flesh.

Arach wept and wept and wept. She wept till her body was listless with wariness; she wept till no more tears were left; she wept till she fell back into miserable unconsciousness. The Prince, with his bleeding heart, clutched her to him, hard and possessively, rocking her in his arms, lulling her to sleep, soothing her—because she was the one who was suffering the most. He, with the knife plunged into his breast, his dying heart weeping the last of its blood, didn't feel as much pain as she did, with the shattered bits of her own broken heart cutting through her body.

Arach awoke with a start so abrupt it nearly shocked her. Was he dead yet? Had he died while she slept? _Oh no—please no_…

'Child…'

She snapped into a seating position, knelt, and bent over him, tearing hair away form her eyes, tears starting to flow again.

'No no no…'

'Child—I am going. Kiss me, one last time…'

'You're not going anywhere! You're lying! I hate you!'

She fell forward, and pressed her mouth to his own, savagely, as if urging him to drink life from her bloody lips.

His face had grown paler, which didn't seem possible. It was not white, not colorless—it was nearly translucent. His eyes, however, were darker, full of the blaze of agony, full of the fierce love which belonged only to her. His lips, pale and thin, stretched into a long, satisfied smile as she removed her mouth from them, her own hot tears raining over his skin.

'We will meet again—I love you.'

He raised a hand, touching the cold back of it to her burning, tear-covered cheek, then let it drop again. Drawing his pale, heavy eyelids close over the striking emerald of his blazing eyes, he took a long, deep breath—which he never released.

**Author's Apocalyptically Apologetic After-Note: Dear Reader: I suppose that after so many weeks without reviewing I should write a very long after-note, but I just can't do it—I am too shaken by my darling Prince's death. You just admit, however, that to have Double-Game betraying him to Thunderion, then Thunderion to him, then finally killing him was a masterstroke. I myself am amazed with my own genius :modest cough:**

**Anyway: I must really apologize. I can't help hoping, of course, that you have been dying to read the next chapter (you probably understand—most of y readers being writers.) But still; sorry. My lateness is not my fault, but that of my teachers: the fact is: I am now a GCSE student—conclusion: I must get tons of homework if I don't want to fail my GCSEs pathetically. So this is what I have been doing, between coping with my crap timetable and my tortuous lessons, my annoying family and crazy friends: HOMEWORK (bane of the world of teenagers.)**

**I hope you will forgive me. **

**Now: REVIEW (I know I shouldn't be asking favors, given my position, but well, I am, after all, a most masterful person: REVIEW right now or detention! (Oh, bloody hell, Sharpe's back! I can't believe it::miserymisery:))**

**So, seeing you soon and writing soon, I hope: now review, I tell you.**


	23. notification!

Dear Readers!  
I just didn't know people still read my story! i can't believe it!i jsut thought people got fed up, but no! i was sadly mistaken! it's the first time in my life i'm happy to be mistaken! yaye! right then, i started writing the next chapter, but i thought, nobody cares! but now i'm off writing the rest, if you people like it so much! i just love all of you! mwah mwah mwah! (these were kisses)  
otherwise, don't worry i'm not dead...yet!  
anyway, then, thanks so much everyone for these magnificent reviews i love you all to bits! see you all soon! and all my personality give you there sicnerest salutes! byyyyyye! 


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